Look, it’s Colin again!!
This is the LAST SKIN DEEP OF 2015! I am taking next week off for the holidays! Skin Deep will return in January! Happy New Year!
Look, it’s Colin again!!
This is the LAST SKIN DEEP OF 2015! I am taking next week off for the holidays! Skin Deep will return in January! Happy New Year!
67 Comments
Seems like someone is just as upset about Ravi’s ramblings as Jim is!!
Happy Holidays Kory! Awesome page to end off the year.
Agreed very much so.
Hope everyone’s Christmas ROCKS!
No it isn’t! Now I have to wait till next year to find out what he was trying, and failing to do! Dagnabit!
We already know what Colin is trying to do.
Jump in human form and while in the air, transform to midform, and land in midform.
Colin has not, yet, fully mastered Medallion Magic transforms. He can easily transform between human form and fullform.
He is lucky his attempt failed. Instead of jumping, he dived. He landed, forepaws first. If his transform had been successful he would have landed hands first and crashed into Tobias.
Jumping like a human takes some getting used to, clearly.
Indeed! Also, everyone, have a happy holidays and merry Christmas and stuff! C:
Oh, is that what he’s doing…
I guess young naturals have to be careful not to get startled until they get used to being in a body that’s not shaped like they’re used to.
I thought that he was already trying a fancy mid-form trick, but Michelle doesn’t seem to have gotten to that point after just short of a year.
Sorry, that sentence did not make sense. (Needs more coffee.)
The sentences did make sense, Kelekona
:)
We know that Mythicals can be startled, at any age, out of a Medallion Magic transformation. Remember what happened to Jim in the Maize in One-Eyed Bear. As they were passing the car, the lights snapping on and the horn going off, startled Jim from human form to midform.
It has a lot to do with how comfortable a Mythical is with their new form.
Colin is young, eager, and effortlessly at home with his human form. He just hasn’t, yet, become as adept with Medallion Magic transformation, as Tobias.
Michelle, is still NOT comfortable with her being a Grecian Sphinx, despite finding out she is one, some 10 months ago in the SD timeline. Till she does become more comfortable with what she is, she won’t be able to start trying to find a midform.
I thought so, anyway! It could indeed be him attempting a midform trick, I didn’t think of that. But I figured that a Griffon would be used to jumping like a cat so he would naturally get ready to catch himself with his front paws/hands, and probably automatically shift back as he did so.
Maybe he was trying to create wings so he could fly in a midform. Keep practicing, Colin!
What’s more funny, is that his intended jump, is a good dive, for diving into water.
True! I can’t wait to see him experimenting more with his powers.
I can see Jim and Mary angrily floofing in unison. That thought makes me happy. :)
Enjoy your vay-cay Kory! Happy Holidays to ya! Can’t wait to see what Ravi has to show Michelle, and if we get to see his other form(s)!
I am surprised that Ravi wouldn’t have wanted to at least have taken Jim to the caverns as well.
And he might well tag along, but that’s not what’s going on here. Ravi essentially asked the Finns if he might “borrow” their guest and promised to take responsibility for her – also permission to enter “their” underground.
If Jim’s gorge rising in the LA was bad enough, Mary is even less happy
She is peeved to the point where she has not offered any of her traditional Hospitality to Ravi.
Which I don’t get. Her family failed their obligation. They should be ashamed of themselves and their anscestors and thrilled that Ravi will help them reclaim their honour. I guess she could blame him for leaving in the first place?
Thousands of things have been forgotten over the years if the secret of medallions died with the sphinx and sphinx were almost legendary, I think it’s fair that the egg/husk would have been less important. Not only that, the Finns still believed they had to always dedicate a son to guarding it. So again, they’ve retained something. If no Finn had been born with “the curse” for generations, someone still had to guard the egg, so eventually the Finns would also have to get used to that too. Certainly someone didn’t perpetuate the proper sort of teachings or access to the proper archives but it is understandable. They’d been guarding this thing for a while and might not even have known why!
Ravi gave the family the ‘gifts’ to guard the phoenix egg husk, but with his ‘gifts’ failing, after he left the British Isles, as Superrad notes, the phoenix egg husk still needed to be guarded, so Family Procedures had to be founded to try to do the job, unassisted by Ravi’s ‘gifts’.
The fact that there were no formal Family Teachings on how to use the ‘gifts’, likely stems from the fact that Ravi would have personally taught Phineas, and Phineas II. So no need to come up with formal ways to do the teaching. With the first generation after Phineas II not having the ‘gifts’, something needed to be worked out to do the job. The first born was to be the Guardian and was roughly taught what they needed to know. That became Tradition.
What happens to his clothes when he transforms? Do they still exist, wear or get dirty?
Apparently the medalion stores them, so probably not.
Gosh darn it man, gosh darn it to heck!
On a related note, what is he trying to do? Is he trying to land on his feet without turning back?
Yeah. He’s trying to jump from couch to couch without turning back to his griffon form but has been unsuccessful.
He’s trying to transform to a midform and land on his feet.
However, he transformed from human to fullform and landed on his forepaws.
He’s annoyed that his attempted transform trick failed, and he hasn’t realised how lucky he is that he did fail.
If it had worked, he’d have landed on his hands and crashed into Tobias.
It’s nice to see a child being admonished for inappropriate language, even of the milder variety. Too many of the kids I encounter (from elementary through college age) seem to think f-bombs are just space-fillers, like “ah” or “um”.
Considering the mildness of the language, I’m pretty sure the admonishment is a joke.
Merry Christmas Kory! Oh, and I hope we get more about Michelle soon :)
Also, GO COLIN GO!!
He’s more careful with his language now since last time his mom got on his case.
Also– Happy Holidays, Kory!
Some cave guardians:
“You don’t know me, but I would like to go into your top-secret caves and look at the top-secret treasure with this inexperienced young girl who is top-secretly the last of her kind.”
“Seems fine to me. Let’s go!”
I agree with that, which makes me uneasy about Ravi’s intentions now. I’m wondering if he actually knows as much as he says he does, or if he’s just fishing for information for someone? Probably just me being overly paranoid.
but he knows were the caves are he knows what the treasure is and he knew Michelle was a Spinx without being told. seems to me that he just really is old and knowledgeable
Well, considering that Ravi apparently had a hand in building the top-secret caverns and knows what the top-secret treasure is (after all, he gave it to the Finns to guard)… and Michelle has seen the caverns, though NOT the treasure (yet), I don’t see any reason to be uneasy.
Obviously someone who’s after the treasure would know what it is. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t be after it. However, he also only claimed to know what it was, but then got Jim to tell him what it was instead.
Also the Finn’s don’t seem to take cave guardian-ing very seriously and talk about the caves in public. If one of them were to get drunk or something they might spill everything.
They only have Ravi’s word to go on that he’s had his hand in anything.
He could be a human sorcerer after the treasure, if that’s the case some sort of scrying spells used to spy on the Finn’s would reveal most of the information he’s told them, and the rest he could have made up.
Really the only thing to his credit at this point is his knowledge of the hair magic. It’s possible he might have come across that while researching the cave treasure though. He could also be very old like he claims and tangled with the guardians before.
The guardian’s might be there specifically to guard against HIM, which is the real reason why their powers waned while he was away.
Yeah, but I find that to be unlikely. Michael (the shade of Michelle’s dad) wouldn’t have name-dropped him and said “he can help” otherwise.
All in all I think the group I dong a fine job dealing with a powerful unknown entity that is obviously involved but cannot fully be trusted. Andrew’s there to guide AND guard; if something is off, he’ll catch it. Concern is written all over his face.
In other words, he’s going as much to keep an eye on Ravi as to guide him.
Who is this ‘Andrew’ you speak of?
Sorry,confused. I meant James.
I suppose; if you can’t trust a cryptic, delirious ghost, with unknown motives, than who can you trust?
A ghost that escaped from Hell, I should add.
From Limbo, you mean.
I know I’m nitpicking, but they are two different places. Essentially, Limbo == “not hell but not allowed into Heaven, either”
You’re right there, my mistake.
By the way, I had a thought with an alternate interpretation…
We know (from Gabriel) that the Darklord is trying to collect on “a false claim”, which means that *someone else* sold Michelle’s soul to the Darklord.
What if the “someone else” was Michael? Either deliberately or (more likely) was tricked into doing so. Then once he realized what he’d done, he arranged his escape from Limbo, triggered her Turning, and pointed her in Ravi’s direction, because Michael knew that was the only way to get her out of what he got her into. And THAT is what he’s “so sorry” about.
Anyway, just wanted to provide an alternate interpretation to consider, since y’all are so convinced that Ravi has ulterior motives. Maybe Ravi’s not the problem.
That’s the whole problem, Mark.
It’s ‘apparently’.
The only things Ravi has outright showed he DID know, was what precisely is being guarded, and what exactly, his ‘gifts’ could do.
The rest, is all his claims, without proof to back them.
He says he knew Jocasta, Wosret, and Phineas the Red. But there is one person missing from who he talks about, the daughter Phineas II, aka Phineas the Green. You’d think that the first Finn to have the Green Plant ‘gift’ would warrant a mention, wouldn’t you? Especially after his outburst at Jim.
He says he was involved in the creation of the LA, the Caves, and Medallions, where’s the proof?
My speculation regarding Phineas II was that he returned to India after she was conceived, but before she was born, and hence he never knew her.
In any case, he may not have presented proof, but you shouldn’t assume “guilty until proven innocent” either. (In other words, don’t assume that just because he’s been incredibly cryptic, that he automatically has sinister motives.)
Sorry… “conceived” is the wrong word to use here. “He returned to India after her egg was fertilized” would be more appropriate. Theoretically, that was enough for her to be born with “the curse”. But of course, that’s Wild Mass Guessing, too. Only Kory knows for sure. :)
Oh my, mister finn’s wings!!!
Has that story been told?
We only know a very small bit about it.
James’ tail and wings were damaged sometime while he and Django were working in a circus in the USA in the early 1930s. James worked behind the scenes as a roustabout, while Django appeared in the freak show.
Kory, bug report for the current story.
Ravi is missing from the cast list on all the pages he’s in.
Have a happy new year Kory.
Wait… is Tobias sitting on his tail? Or is he being awkward in posture?
Both, Kelkona.
Kory gets the anatomy correct. Tails do not stick out at a right angle to the body.
Happy Holidays, Kory! Thank you for another great page!
Haha, Mary is up to here with Ravi!
If Mary puffs up any more, her feathers will start falling out. XD
Also, Colin? Midforms aren’t built in a day. :3
Looks like Mrs. Finn is just as enamored with Ravi as her son.
“Of COURSE this annoying blighter had his finger in every pie and neglected to mention it! Can this day get any worse?”
“Can this day get any worse?”
NEVER ask that question, even in jest.
That is challenging the Fates to do just that.
True, true.
Merry Christmas Kory!
Would Jim be in the caves to cool off from his conversation with Ravi?
If so he’s not going to have much succes now that Ravi’s headed there….
I wonder, now that they know there’s a purpose to Jim and Colin’s abnormal hair color, will the Finns change their tradition for guarding the egg, or continue like they always have been? If they change, wouldn’t Jim have to stay in the LA?
Well, there’s Colin….
Since the source of power for the ‘gifts’ manifesting in the generations is Ravi being present in the British Isles, the current Fins will be able to record things better, so if in the future, another one with the Finn Curse shows up, then there will be some training how-to’s available.
Otherwise, the existing Traditional System will have to endure.
As for Jim staying in the LA, yeah, that’s a possibility, once he’s finished college. Both Jim and Colin need training in how to use their ‘gifts’. And don’t forget, we know of a third Elemental Aspect of the ‘gifts’, fire red. Phineas the Red. So there will have to be some recording of a how-to for training such a Finn in the future, should such a Finn show up, in addition to recording Jim’s plant green training and Colin’s water blue training.
What Michelle, Merial, and Greg will do, will be interesting.
I notice that while Jim’s green hair manifests as a glorious mane and tufting in his full form, Colin’s blue hair just manifests at the tip of his tail. Maybe that’ll change as he gets older.
Colin doesn’t yet have a mane.
He’s too young, at the moment, only just having turned 10.
5 to 10 years time, within the SD universe though, yeah, he should have a mane by then.
Jenifur Charne
But seriously, I feel bad for the folks in this comic who get shafted on their super powers. He and Greg need to commiserate.