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Kill Them with Kindness 9: Not Your Son

Kill Them with Kindness 9: Not Your Son published on 94 Comments on Kill Them with Kindness 9: Not Your Son

You might think Cy and Lee are unaware of what is happening here but honestly this isn’t anything they haven’t seen experienced before.

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I’ve also set up a Skin Deep subreddit! For all your reddit-y needs. It’s brand new and needs a little love, how about you drop by and start and/or contribute to a thread?

94 Comments

Those two ARE alike. A pity his mother can’t see that. I love the smooth transitions from one form to the next, it’s remarkable how well you’re showing it. Thankyou for drawing such awesome stories Kory!

And now I want to know more about the older little brother, frankly. He’s interesting. Lee. Petrus, Lee, and Cyan. And now all I can think is “to the lee of the stone”… {going back to reread this story from the start}

Another NIMHnul? Sweet!!!

{grin} Well, all the important words are there. And Lee is going with… heheh. “Rock”.

Yeah, NiMH. I had such a crush on Justin… I loved Racso. And then I found out about the movie. Oh mannnn… That was the point when I had a crush on Jenner, I think. NiMH affected my existence, big time.

NiMH has got a lot in common with Korys excellent stories. A secret society of sapient nonhuman individuals. Their town in the forest is the Avalon of the Rats. And occasional mouse. And occasional lost child, but I never really liked that section of the NiMH story.

…and poor Rhonda is completely forgotten by all parties. Even her boyfriend.

I’m looking at this comic and feeling unsettled because… Where is the Lion?

Yeah, I’m getting quite distracted now because I keep staring at it and there is nowhere off-panel she could be hiding unless trying to make yourself invisible actually works for heraldics.

Or she took off running when she saw the face of a demon-horse.

Okay question because I’m a little confused…Rhonda, Horace, and Lee all have hooves but Cy doesn’t appear to…Are they just covered by his fins or is it something else?

Rhonda has paws because she is a lion. The rest have shifted to hooves because they are more useful for walking on land. Cy is just learning how to shapeshift.

OOOHHH now I’m interested in Ike’s father! I’m sure we won’t get to see THAT much, but aren’t Manticores devoid of medallions and natural shape-shifting abilities? Now I’m wondering what his father did to fool a natural shape-shifter, and a prideful one at that.

Well,…I not only wonder WHAT Ike’s father did to fool a natural shapeshifter,…but WHY, in this particular case considering her personality, would he even have WANTED to?!?! I mean, seriously,…her general attitude’s not attractive AT ALL…

She might have acted nicer before that happened. It might even been the root of her prejudice.

True. Third option is he might have heard about her attitude, had a nasty sense of humor, and figured it was time for some awkward karma. Though, probably not child birth awkward.

Option 4 is she got blind drunk and literally couldn’t see him while they bumped uglies…

Horace must be the most patient man alive because daaaaaaamn.

I like Horace – he is, at least, trying to be a fair parent. Lynn, he isn’t making you the bad one, you are doing it all by yourself.

Also, ! you Lynn, Horace raised the boy, he’s his son, genes be darned. The only one who isn’t his family here is you!

Ahhhh….The plot thickens.

So she did not know Ike’s father was a manticore.

Interesting..Since its been said that manticores aren’t natural shapeshifters.

Poor Ike.
I imagine Rhonda is getting an idea of what made him so skittish when they first met.

-Badger-

Wait manticores aren’t natural shapeshifters and they’re “monsters” meaning they can’t use medallions so…
I am really confused.

Man, even Horace talks about the Nemeans like they’re some sort of commodity to be used. He’s talking about “running out of lions” like we’re talking about running out of rock salt for ice over here… o_O

Now, here’s a question: do bugganes, as water-dwelling creatures, have fur (like a seal), or do they have skin (like a dolphin)?

So she is one of those purebreed people. I guess? I don’t know. I was right about why Ike father isn’t in the picture. Even though I didn’t say it, I was basically saying that she left Ike’s father because he was a Manticore. Nuff said.

Lynn puts on her night-mare face there (Sorry).

It seems Horace is a decent father despite not being Ike’s biological dad, willing to step in front of an angry Lynn to spare Ike her full wrath.

Horace: Lynn, dear! We should probably get over to the Nemean Hall before they run out of lions.

—- >:=)>

– *huff* *puff* Guys! *wheeze* I mean, fellows… we’ve got Ike’s mother incoming! I just heard her! Looking for help shifting furniture!

– Yikes! I’m out of here!

– Egads! Yes, if the look on Ike’s face whenever she’s mentioned is anything to go by…

– Hold, fellows! Let us keep our dignity and tradition, here! We are Nemeans! This is our hall! Now, does anyone have anything sensible to say?

– Yes! If we deactivate the pilot light in the boiler and then turn on the gas, we can say we’re closed due to a leak.

– That’s… damn me, she’s just come round the corner down the street …good enough! You go and get the boiler, you turn out the lights, you go and pull the fuses, I’ll put a sign out and bar the door! We’ll leave by the back way, reassemble in the Drunken Satyr and say we’re off duty if anyone asks!

So, my theory was right – she didn’t know his father was a manticore. So it was a strictly-human relationship – with neither of them knowing about the other not being human.

I’m guessing the father didn’t even know he wasn’t human.

Now there would be a twist, if the same thing happened to him that happened to Anthony.

Not a lot of possibilities left besides that one, I guess. We know he did *not* look like a manticore to Lynn, and the *usual* methods to look like something else don’t apply to manticores. (Assuming that a nixie-spit-ified manticore still looks enough like a manticore to ring a bell, that is. And excluding cop-outs like “too drunk to ever open my eyes while getting pregnant” …)

Wasn’t there mention of Blanche’s traditional occupation being to lead people to a quest? Tony questing for Ike’s dad to find out more about their common affliction would qualify nicely. :-}

It’s an interesting parallel at the least. I mean, unless Anthony was cursed into his form, he had to inherit it from someone. Which means, if he is a harpy, we’ve two cases of beings with neither medallions nor shape-changing ability disguised so well no one knows they’re actually monsters. And in both cases it resulted in impossible offspring.

Admittedly, in Anthony’s case we have no idea if the progenitor harpy in his bloodline is his mom or his great-great-great-great-grandmother. And that brings up the question of why Anthony inherited the disguise as well, but Ike didn’t. Unless something like Lynn shape-shifting during the pregnancy broke it. Or she tried to give Ike a medallion and it shattered the illusion, showing him to be a hybrid rather than a human-disguised buggane. (I don’t remember if buggane’s have medallions or not.)

Makes me wonder if there’s more unknown hybrids running around. And how these folks who aren’t supposed to be able to disguise themselves have managed it.

I don’t think that’s correct. Manticores are medallion-less monsters; that means that they can’t form the human illusion or use the medallion magic to do the cross-species mating that would result in a human-born child.

Chances are that Manticore Dad was using some form of spotty illusory magic to pretend to be something else (presumably human, assuming Lynn’s rampant bigotry wasn’t so bad when she was younger).

Those species who do not have Medallions are regarded as Monsters.
In the first panel, the image of Lynn fits that description quite accurately.

Actually bugganes aren’t monsters they just don’t wear medallions due to having a natural shape-shifting ability. If Bugganes were monsters then doubtless Ikes mom probably wouldn’t have left his Father

I know that, Wolfencreek.
However, recall Exchanges Handshakes page 25, and the discussion between Eleanor, Jim, Jon, Lorne, and Paul.
Eleanor’s own words: “Bandersnatches don’t have medallions either. By definition I’m a monster”.
In the current story, Lynn is the one who loses it, and in the first frame, in her anger looks most definitely monsterous.

You know, sometimes a character just really gets to you, and Ike’s mum, for me, is that character. I guess I jumped on the ‘hate train’ a little early in the game, but some personalities hit awfully close to home. I really admire Rhonda for taking the risk to interact with the storm of hatred and narcissism that is Ike’s mum. I hope Ike appreciates what he’s got in a girl like that. Lots of people just avoid the “crazy family” or talk badly of them when they’re not in the room, but it takes a strong person to stand up to them, and an even stronger one to do it politely. Maybe he’s just young, but it sounds like Ike has a lot of anger issues to work out as well, albeit understandably so.

I think it’s easy to hate someone because they say or do things you don’t like, but people generally do things for a reason. I think she’s more pitiable than a target for hate. She probably had something really awful happen to her that resulted in her being so racist. She refers to Rhonda as a ‘feline'(Which manticores are apparently very feline looking), so I think Ike’s dad plays a part in the root of her bigotry.

I hope we get to see more about their history together, or at least hear about it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Michelle’s mother ended up similarly biased towards magical folks after the ‘breaking it to her’ arc.

The intense dislike for Lynn was sparked by her public instigation of, what we now know is yet another round, an ongoing argument between her and Ike.
As far as we can tell, she deliberately moved the entire family to where Ike is, just to be able to harass him. Such behaviour is not likely to endear a character with the audience.

Many here are assuming that Lynn’s prejudice stems from something that happened to her. But in reality most people’s prejudice is learned from parents/family and has no grounding in anything other than simple fear and hate. The average person isn’t intelligent enough to question or challenge what they were taught as children, and hence mindlessly continues the bigotry without questioning the reasons for it.

Not saying this is the case either, but it’s a possibility.

Good save, Horace, but you should have said, “No, dear, he’s OUR son; we’re family.” Bring Lynn’s mind back to the love of a mother for her babies and the laughter of youth.

Joe, I have the feeling that the last traces of any memory of such love toward Ike, is long forgotten and deliberately buried in Lynn.

Which is why it must be exhumed and held before her face. Taunt her, tease her, quiz her, force her to relive the past, for she does not deserve to escape it.

IF it cannot heal let it destroy her as she destroys those around her.

Or maybe they should just spike her tea with cyanide and a sleeping agent and kill her kindly.

^OK, that was rather vicious, but she really gets on my nerves, plus I wondered if the chapter title might actually be a play on words; the idiom is so well-worn, however, that the only other way to interpret it would be as a reference to a sort of euthanasia- that is, killing someone as mercifully as possible.

That suggestion of yours wasn’t vicious, Joe.
Vicious would be the suggestions made over the course of the preceding pages.

Aahh Lee you cute little cranberry you I want to see more of Lee. Seeing that Cy’s gray and Lee’s brown like their mother. I’m guessing his apparently reserved nature means he takes after his father who is probably Horace, and Horace seems like a nice guy, he means well anyway and I wonder if maybe he’s bumbling into Lynn’s way on purpose to provide the kids a way to escape. But Yeah I wanna hear from Lee. And Anthony Gillis. Tony best work at that toy store. Or Blanche. Or someone.

while the whole argument between Ike and Lynn is very telling, the comment Ike gives when he takes his brothers to the toy shop is very.. telling. ” bye mum we’ll be going, and never coming back” Ike really wants nothing to do with his mother, because their relationship is so poisonous, and one thing it looks like he really wants is his his brothers to Not grow up with the same belief system that she does. However, one of a parent’s greatest fears is to lose their children, for any reason. I’m not saying that Lynn is right, because she for sure isn’t, but the fact that she lost her first child emotionally, and may lose the her younger sons(lee doesn’t look to happy about mummy’s tantrum,and cy is too young to really understand ), has got to be stressful in its own right

There seems to be a lot of confusion about whether Manticores or Ike could shapeshift. Manticores cannot but Ike inherited that trait from his mother’s side. I had just read this recently so I thought I would share.

“Ike is considered a Monster because he does not have a medallion, but because of his buggane heritage he is a natural shapeshifter, and can naturally shift from human to midform to fullform.

He tends not to shift into his fullform because his shifting is a physical transformation; it is somewhat more difficult,his clothes get destroyed and it hurts.”

From the wiki: http://skindeep.wikia.com/wiki/Ike_Sanford

A lot of the comments that have been left the last few pages have made me fell far more uncomfortable then Lynn, and this is coming from someone that had an overbearing mother that didn’t like my husband at first for years and years.

OK the cyanide bit was overkill:P. I was just mad and twisting the chapter title as far as it could go.
As for Tony being an Unturned, that’s definitely a possibility, though Harpies are said to be a female-only species. Of course, considering the extinction of Sphinxes and dragons has been greatly exaggerated, our information may not be accurate.

However considering Michelle’s kiss “fixed” Greg’s eyes (until then they remained human even when he changed), her healing ability would be quite useful to stabilize Tony should they ever meet.

Hey Kory, have you ever heard about a site know as Tv Tropes? Because if you did heard about it and even read it, I would like to talk about a particular trope: [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneWingedAngel One-Winged Angel]]. What is this trope about? Well, thats when a character (normally a villain) take a more monstrous form for combat and/or intimitadion. I know Ike’s mother isn’t a villain per say, nor does she itents to start a (physical) fight, but it’s hard not to think on this trope when you look at first panel of this page…

Do we ever get info on what happened with Ike’s parents? I mean how did she not KNOW Ike’s dad was a manticore? I mean manticores are monsters right? So they don’t have medallions and can’t hide right? So how did she not know???

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