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

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One of the things I love about this story so far is just how much information we’re getting — not just about Michelle and the sphinxes, and the legacy of the Finns, but how Jim actually thinks about himself. There’s a lot of self-image stuff that I never knew about, but completely makes sense. It’s really interesting!

I can’t WAIT to see what Jim can do once he starts figuring out how to use his power. I’ve always secretly wanted the ability to grow/control plants. :D :D :D

Yeah, poor Jim has a lot of scars he tries to hide.

I know! I’m hopeful to see him do it too! I agree! My favorite super powers are weather control and plant growth/control. There are so few supers that do either, but you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some fire-related one.

Dead cat lol ( “No room to swing a cat” refers to a cat o’ nine tails, which was way too long to swing below decks.)

I saw my grandmother swing a cat once, but it was a real cat. Like, a four footed member of the genus Felis. It was in her yard again. She’d told it and its owner that she wasn’t having it! So she grabbed it by the tail and swung it round her head and let it fly toward the road. It landed a bit funny (not that unusual, considering all the Gs it was probably experiencing), and ran off. It didn’t come back. …So, not a dead cat swing, but a live cat swing. Please do not try at home.

(I suppose that) Jim need to accept his gifts – or else they will never work, and wasn’t Ravi that clingy it would be a lot easier.

And yes, Colin really deserve a scolding for what he did – it’s a bit too much, even if he’s still a child

But children are supposed to be “gay and innocent and heartless”!

Well, what he said on the second panel removes the “innocent” part of it X-D

And yeah, I was somewhat mischievous when younger – specially when I wasn’t afraid of bugs and other creepy crawlers at all and loved to bring then home, scaring my parents out of their pants (even now I don’t fear then) Bah, perhaps I’m just an Unturned bugbear X-D

Isn’t that the way magic is supposed to be, so free flowing that you do not have to think about it? It just happens when you will it to do whatever, since magic is an extension of yourself.
Well at least that’s my thoughts on magic anyway….

For species with a large degree of innate magic, yes.
But gryphons aren’t normally in that category, and knowledge of how to use Ravi’s ‘gifts’ died out after the appearance of the ‘gifts’ themselves died out whilst Ravi was in India.
Look at what was needed for the harpy to human transformation spell in Reunion, or the tunnel spell in Exchanges. Those spells required effort and power.
Colin’s using his water manipulation with no effort. Remember how much effort it took Merial to move the water in Orientations and in Nixie Spit? To me, it feels like Colin has somehow tapped into some source of real Power to make things effortless for him.

And this is how villains are born.

(Or, I guess if Tobias is a bit more noble than that: why family estrangements happen)
Honestly Tobias. If this is the norm, it’s time to get out of the toxic environment.

It’s like Peter Pan, he needs to believe :)

No.
Jim just needs to learn the key to using his variant of Ravi’s ‘gift’.
Right now, Jim knows something of what he SHOULD be able to do, control plants.
But in the scene where he learned that, he was never shown or told ANYTHING of how to DO that.
His hair was cut and turned into plants by Ravi, and Jim was simply told that, ‘And I assume you don’t even have the most rudimentary control over these?’
https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/illumination-31-make-sense/

I’m thinking that, for Jim, his abilities need a physical component too. I mean, Colin has to *have* liquid around to manipulate it (at least at present); I wonder what’d happen if somebody gave Jim a packet of grass-seed and he focused on it?

MUM: “…..Would anyone like to tell me why my living-room floor needs mowing? Anyone? Or shall I just start handing out the blame and consequences at random?”
EVERYONE: **points at Jimothy**

Can Tobias really make audible stomping noises with paw feet?

Anyone who’s ever been around substantial numbers of teenagers, or at least in recent memory, understands that STOMP STOMP STOMP is as much a psychological and postural effect as it is an aural one. You don’t need to be making noise to STOMP STOMP STOMP. And with enough weight and force you can STOMP STOMP STOMP even in the quietest footwear.

It’s a little depressing that a society can even have a concept like “disfigured” when almost every member of that society is radically different in appearance.

It’s particularly weird when almost all of them choose to spend most of their time in “midforms” that are neither human nor magical creature, with even more oddity to their appearances.

Okay, maybe another magical creature of exactly the same kind might notice if your mane wasn’t right, or you didn’t have the right number of claws, but if ever there was a society that should be all about natural “diversity” it ought to be this one.

You don’t get it.

Jim had to try to deal with green hair, at a HUMAN SCHOOL. Can you imagine how much flack he’d have copped?

That had him angsty and depressed in his early teens, and then the extra height, and almost instantly re-growing hair kicked in on top of things.
As far as he knew, the green hair, and later the height and hair re-growth, were all part of a family curse. So definitely NOT some minor variation from the ordinary.

And then you also have to remember that Jim spent some of his early years growing up in Wonderland.
And then you recall Eleanor’s comment about Wonderland, in RQ number 6 for February 2010
“I miss the unbridled xenophobia and racism.”
https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/question-6/

See, this makes me sad. Toby expresses worry that his physical body makes him a freak and everyone dismisses him. Jim does the same thing and his friends are immediately supportive.

It’s kinda creepy. Not going to lie.

Key word there was his friends. If Toby had said the same thing around his friends he probably would of gotten the same response as Jim. Also when toby did express his worry Jim did in his own way try and alleviate the worry by making it less about what he looks like and more how he reacts.

Months late, but this is exactly the situation. He’s reassuring Toby that Toby is fun to needle, not that he’s different, and trying to be funny about it to further assure him they’re not serious. Colin hitting him in the face with tea is kind of an overkill move, though.

(I suspect that under normal circumstances this would just be a bit of sibling banter, too, but Toby’s also probably feeling a little put out that all three of his siblings are markedly special (Paul as the cave guardian, and now Jim and Colin both being ‘chosen’ by some ancient magic, leaving him in the lurch between much more noteworthy siblings) and his inferiority is making him have a worse reaction than he normally would, which is why the others don’t think it’s a big deal to go apologize while he sulks.)

Well… I confess I want to know where the tea-blob went in the last panel. The Finn are going to get very good at dealing with unexplainable liquid stains.

“Is that…?”
“Yes.”
“All over the…?”
“Yes, it is. we have the painters coming round tomorrow.”

Actually, I can imagine that Mrs. Finn would assign painting duties to her little sith novice, making sure that no wet paint anywhere near him is water-based.

Besides, Colin may have just sent the tea-blob back to the mug after lifting it to demonstrate.

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