Recent comments

He doesn't wait around. He goes home and gets the stone (https://fictionbranches.net/fb/story/16964).

If you want to criticize the way the wish is being granted, then go back to deepfried's episode (https://fictionbranches.net/fb/story/16944) where Linda Masters is affected by Cecil's wish. It's basically the same thing. I just continued with the same idea. As for filling the well, it's kind of the only way to do it, as wishing that the well was filled would make it so that the well essentially wouldn't exist, so that would be a contradiction of the wish for the existence of the wishing well in the first place. I wrote that episode a long time ago, but even though I didn't write it like that, I kind of got the sense that that's what was meant by it.

The bimbo transformation virus, that old gag. I honestly am surprised it’s not the plot of a hollywood movie at this point. I’ll bet it’s the plot of an asian live acted film by now though.

Always a bit finicky to write something that is genuinely mean, because even if it's just directed at the characters, it can still be hurtful. Regardless, I'm fairly happy with this chapter.
Thinking back on the story, I think it would have been a cool idea to keep the anger and tension between Zoe and Karyn until this moment. But it's still fine that that had already started to make up by this point.

After some further examination and attempts at planning it out, I just can’t complete this thing because the inconsistencies in previous pages are just too extensive. The worst one is “this is a fairly uncommon change, but it’s not at all unheard of. I know of three cases in the last 10 years just in this state.” -At the hospital index 19036 compared against “I am the only sphinx in the world” -Sphinxes talk index 19077. They even refer to Jon as a “mundane sphinx” and not the rare “giant sphinx” in 19039. But now Jon being the sole hope of the sphinx species is the justification for the ancient sphinx badgering Jon specifically apparently and I think that is an untenable problem with the premise. It’s a great story otherwise until its premise collapses at the foundation though.

What I’m not so sure of now is if Karyn confirmed she had been with 30 men 3 pages ago if she was just required to agree with everything Cecil says or if it was the truth. At first I thought it was the former but now I’m not so sure.

Jon: “Well I already know Karyn went off with the guy that can literally order her to do anything and already made her attack and nearly kill me thus proving he is a psychopath, so why could it be that she’s not answering her phone. Hmm I wonder, what EVER could be the explanation for that. Oh woe is me, it must be because she’s mad at me, that’s it. I’m sure she’s not in any danger, or that I’m in any danger, so I guess I’ll just wait around and not do much of anything now, it’s no hurry.”

Wait a moment, just because she can’t say no to him doesn’t mean she would actually do as he said. It seems more reasonable that she would say ok and then hit Cecil with the shovel. I can’t respect this version of Jon and Karyn anyway though, they actually showed up in person to fill in the well with hard work as if that was somehow easier than wishing for it to be done, that makes 0 sense. “We don’t even NEED to wish for the well to be buried, why would we do that when we can simply shovel tens of tons of dirt onto it by hand with shovels!”

It was bound to happen though, it was inevitable someone would eventually make a wish like that. Making unrestricted wish granting accessible to everyone was a terrible plan Jon.

Aaaahhhh I getchu, I getchu. I thought you had just missed the whole Angel thing at first, but yeah, you're kinda right, it's a bit unsatisfying here. I think it's a case of TF happening because TF content is sorta just expected to be there, on this site, not really because it itself adds much to the narrative. The interesting part of the whole setup was always going to be her relationship with Zair, not the particulars of her anatomy, anyway. In fact, that's kinda the point: what she's asked for and what she's getting is this Angel form, but that's not what she wants. What she really wants is a better relationship with Zair, and an opportunity to be a better parent to her than what she has been. Becoming a guardian angel opens some opportunities there, but it doesn't necessarily accomplish that, right away; that's something she's going to have to do herself, via character growth and all that good stuff. And honestly you actually seem to have a pretty good grasp of what the root of the conflict there would be, in that sometimes being a Good Parent paradoxically means stepping back and letting your kids learn things the hard way. Wanting a good relationship with your kids isn't a bad or a destructive thing at all per se (and it honestly does kinda disturb me a little bit that you're faulting her so much for wanting that), but boundaries do need to be there, and there's only so much Helen can realistically do for Zair, all by herself. Helen right now thinks her biggest shortcoming is that she couldn't have been there enough for Zair because she's a poor single mom, and Zarala doesn't really have a father figure or anything that could pick up the slack. Of course, that's not it, not entirely anyway.

But yeah, like I said, there hasn't really been the text space to get this all out there yet. That's for our wonderful remaining story to get across, yeah? We just have to write it first :)

Hmm... Well the Mara part is tricky. I admit I was fearful I had written myself into a wall, but I felt it was best to address why a boy might have trouble learning magic. Conflict need not be physical, and there could be another way to settle a contest then a physical fight. When in doubt, do something cute is my general motto. Which leads me to...

My first draft did have an Angel TF but I found it unsatisfying. People getting what they want through prayer just doesn't work in a story. Otherwise people would be praying for all sorts of miracles. I am very sorry, but Helen comes across as 'very' unsympathetic, wollowing in the lack of a good relationship with her daughter. I don't see how that can be the fault of a child, that's the fault of a parent. She seems to generally crave more, rather then be happy that Zair found a place to learn more about her kind she resents that it wasn't her that lead her to it. Helen's desires are inherently destructive in my humble opinion but that's not to say it makes a bad story to explore. There is also something coming up later on the nature of an Angel's power. It is far far more restrictive then that of a demons in what they are allowed to do. They can not inervene with 'fate' for instance.

So yes I just thought it would be cute. Cats are cute.

I suspect that for both these branches it’s about to go from wrong to wronger.

Why did his name change to Terra? Terry’s already a girl’s name.

it would have been more interesting for how it could go wrong if the writer had him instead say “I wish my wife would get pregnant” or “I wish my wife and I could have children together”.

And now, the big one. Re: Helen and Lucifer.

I'm pretty darn sure there's misreadings going on here, ngl, but that's kinda on me since there really hasn't been the text space to flesh out the relationship between Helen and Zair like I'm imagining it yet. The biggest one seems to me to be this idea I'm getting from your stuff that Helen's sorta been an awful mother to Zair, in a way. Like, Zarala seems to be recalling all sorts of little mistreatments between the two, Helen was the "bad one" in her and Lucifer's relationship, Zarala just wants to get away from the nightmare that was living with mom, etc. In my head, that's not it all. In my head, Helen is actually a great mother to Zair. And in my head, the subversion is that that's kinda the problem.

Like, one non-obvious character trait I sorta had in mind for Helen is that her opinion of demons in general really isn't that much higher than Terry's was. She's obviously quite religious, so there was already a bias against them coming from there, but then after she got her fingers burnt so badly in her relationship with Lucifer it's pretty much a maxim of hers that your average demon is no good. That's part of why it's so important to her that Zair be raised "right": she could end up being like (shudder) her father if she isn't! My inclusion of Zair nearly having a panic attack in revelation the fact that she was nearly having a panic was partially meant to hint at that: at years of Helen trying very hard to teach Zarala basically not to be a demon, not to show the wings, not to use the fire, not to do most of the things demons do. But of course that's hopeless; Zair IS a demon, and just wants to live her own demon life her own demon way, with the current magic school being a nice escape for her to do that, right? The problem with that, of course, is that her mother genuinely loves her, and is probably the only one who ever has; Zair's having to give that up to go off on her little adventure, and whether she acknowledges it or not, that's gonna sting, a lot.

Lucifer, in my version of things, is not really an intriguing character because he really doesn't need to be; this isn't a story about him, after all, it's about Zarala, Terry, and Martin. Maybe he might make for an interesting side plot at some point, but tbh I'd think it more prudent to limit our attention to only the core cast and the greatest influences in their lives, which in Zarala's case is 100% Helen. Lucifer is important insofar as he adds context to the lives of Helen and Zair, but that's about it, I'd say. (Plus i can already feel the insidious tentacles of power creep as is, and throwing a literal god into the character stew almost certainly isn't gonna help with that, i think).

Oh, and uh... one more misreading. I dunno how the frick one can read about a woman, in a church, in a prayer, asking to become an angel, and think "Aha! Cartoon Cat TF!" but I guess that happened. C'mon man, the angel-mother/demon-daughter contrast is basically the low-hanging fruit here.

Alright, prepare for a ton of "Re:"s.

First of all, Re:all the compliments; thank you. I try :)

Re:Mara; I'ma be honest, I really wasn't sure how to handle Mara going into this. I was already having trouble getting into his headspace as a character, and on top of that, the situation he was left off in the last episode was kinda a tricky one to handle as an author, since, let's face it, this is not the sort of challenge he should be capable of overcoming at this point in his magic training, and I kinda had to really reach for a creative solution to that problem. That being said, though, some amount of Mara acting out-of-character here was done deliberately and intentionally: it's because The Promise is subtly but powerfully shifting her character from here on out, at least in the story I imagine from here. I thought from some of the earlier episodes that a character had to make The Promise as part of the binding ritual, and of course such an oath would be closely and consequentially linked to their character from then on, but tbh I didn't wanna have to figure out what Tahera and Zarala's Promises would be right away, so I just made it the necessary step to get the Spirit Portal open, into which Terry and Zair could jump no Promise necessary. I figured Mara's Promise would naturally serve to exaggerate her already existing character traits, the most obvious of which is her lowkey obsession with learning magic even at great risk to herself. So, now, she's forced by The Promise to accept things like the Spirit's challenges even if she doesn't really want to. You can see how well that's going to turn out for her, I imagine (hint: it won't). Plus it makes a magic-lover like her even more of a foil to magic-resenters like Terry and kinda also Zair.

Re:Uni; would you be surprised if I told you I decided to include Uni in this precisely because I wanted to see her mysterious side explored more? I feel like up to now she hasn't really had any good excuse to interact meaningfully with the main cast, which means any investigation into her character and/or her past can't really have taken off. So, when I thought to myself "hm, the main characters probably aren't strong enough to handle this fight by themselves, who should I bring in as the needed extra muscle?" my almost immediate afterthought was "I know! I could use that automaton that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention yet! Surely defense of the students in case of emergency must be part of her programming, and she's inherently limited in capabilities by the keywinding, so it's not like she'll steal the show or anything!" I actually even had a sort-of TF trigger in mind at first, something to do with her running down and getting trapped in the spirit world while the rest of the students evacuated, so they could work their magic. I even had a sketch in mind for Tahera's substitute companion in this case: a 4-armed, blue-skinned genie of the ring named Parvati, with inspiration shamelessly taken from Hindu iconography. That... would have complicated an already complex situation considerably, though, so I just straight cut it out (Pun intended). I know the whole swashbuckler thing doesn't really fit in too well with her character on balance, but hey, I figure we only really need it for this scene: all the juicy bits happen in the aftermath, anyway.

Re: the yet-unnamed-fairy: Of course the little one's gotta have the Napoleon Complex :) and hey, a high-risk-high-reward type fighter with capabilities way out of proportion to their physical size almost always makes things more fun.

gentle nudge while this isn't quite improv, the unwritten rule of "yes, and" is still a pretty good guideline. If you're changing something for a narrative reason, sure go with it, but if you're just changing something because you don't like it, it can take a reader out of a story.

Also: if you're going to talk smack about Niagara Falls, you should at least learn how to spell it properly :-p

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Okay I have had a read and tried to organise my thoughts as best I can.

First off I’m very grateful that one feels a desire to contribute to my stories and I absolutely love the passion I can see in the writing. There’s no reason you can’t make this your own, but there are some things that make me a little uncomfortable in what they establish.

I kind of liked Uni having a mysterious role in this rather then being another fighter. Though you certainly wrote the fight sequences well.

The relationship between Helen and Lucifer was always going to be strange. I kind of liked the subversion that Helen was the one acting selfish. This seems to hold true with the last chapter, given she seems to be thinking more about herself rather then Zair, though I could be misreading it. A goofball devil dad is kinda more intriguing.

I really like how you described the well of power. I had a few weird ideas, making it a huge portal to the spirit world is really cool.

I think Mara is a little over the top. I’m not sure she would so quickly surrender her identity for power, but does want to explore magic because it is beautiful to him/her.

I do like the fairy and you probably read my mind with the laser cutter as that was planned to be a thing in the future ;)

I’m thinking to try a third path in this. My one suffered from complexity but I think it can be simplified and you have given some interesting ideas

will read it soon and I might branch off it. My own branches are not always priority and I didn't get as many votes on it, so its possible your take is better :)

Definitely this is too much crammed into one page. Should have been made in 2 pieces, part one, they combine into one two-headrd body, get home, part two, they accidentally wish it to be permanent. Because now no one can build anything else starting from just the first part of the plot line, they’re forced to do both or neither. Like maybe I’d like to write a page starting from them not also being immortal and permanently fused, but now I can’t, unless I go back a page and create a new page which is just the first half of this one, bu I’m not gonna do that because that would feel a lot like plagiarism.

Thanks. I'm in and out of writers block these days. So it's tough to get something out. But I'm glad you like it. :)

Love Susan’s mother. Another great chapter :)

I'm very flattered that my branch inspired you to reuse it's opening paragraph, you are doing a good job here

This is the one page written by BroomB I don’t like. The justification the mother gives is beyond tenuous. She’s forcing her son to humiliate him/herself first of all. They don’t have any clothes for Jon, which means she’s forcing him out there naked. Without shoes too. On the first day. And as he pointed out, he’s likely to be contagious, and if it wasn’t contagious as she claims, how does she think he caught it himself. And of course after forcing him to publicly exhibit himself in this body he doesn’t want to be in she’ll be rushing straight home to rummage through his room and throw out the rock in the trash before he gets home. It would just be better if instead of being forced into likely lifelong emotional trauma by his unloving mother, if it was his idea, not hers, for him to immediately resume school attendance against his mother’s urging to stay home, out of perhaps compulsive desire to let the adventure created by the rock to play out for a certain amount of time before ending it. As it is, his mother wins the award for worst parent ever and I don’t think “terrible parent” is the right thing to fill her role with considering I’m pretty sure I’m not expected to actually notice how terrible a mom she’s being here.

It appears passiveobserver must flip a coin at the start of every story, half the time he writes very seriously, the other half he’s trolling, but this time I think the coin must have landed on its edge because I can’t tell which one it is.

Yoy know, the picture you put in doesn’t actually match the description, her ears are on the sides of her head, and she doesn’t have a catlike nose.

You have to admire Karyn’s commitment to cheating here, she could just wish for the knowledge to magically be put on her brain so she would pass the test without any effort in studying but no, she wants to wish Jon to be able to disguise himself as her and take the test in her place.

That’s kind of funny as a joke, but damn hard to continue an actual story out of I think. And here I thought for a moment this one was going to be some religious rubbish so at least it wasn’t that. My but it has a lot of hits and few views though, what does that mean and what even is the difference between hits and views?

If this is the only way she can “win” the argument, then she 100% has proved him right, but she lacks the self-awareness to see this.

She’s certainly failing in her supposed objective of showing Jon that girls supposedly have things harder by torturing him like this. This is not a fair and honest average day for a girl, what with being tormented by a sadistic and petty person. If he gets through this with his memory intact (though I doubt he will) and gets his rock back, this version of him should definitely be ending his friendship with this nasty version of Karyn.

Thanks for the feedback

My suggested outline of remaining plot and subplots:

Molly/Matt and David encounter, Molly/Matt is more sympathetic to David with possible romance between them both in female form, but Matt eventually returns to normal and things get awkward but their friendship is resolidified. Eventually they also meet Jon in the park and David apologizes for mistreating Jon before, and Jon is dismissive because she has other things to worry about but still accepts the apology. David then builds up a friendly dialog and they learn of each others' ability to communicate with their respective animal kin and have a minor adventure pooling talents to facilitate communication between some rabbits and stray cats, and though not friends, at least the water is under the bridge between Jon and David.

Jon and Karyn find it is impossible to separate the stone from the statue without damaging the statue because when more than one conscious being is touching the stone simultaneously, only the one who has been touching it longer can wish with it and so the ancient Sphinx is the only one who can use it so they can't wish for it to be teleported out of her grip and Jon is not pleased with what the sphinx did to her, understands why she did it and forgives her, and the sphinx wants to continue holding the stone until the mission is complete in order to safeguard it, Jon and Karyn agree. But in the meantime ancient sphinx is willing to revise the original wish for the cold to be replaced by this transformation virus as she can wish for things, and everyone else changes back but of course Jon is stuck this way until 3 generations because that was explicitly wished for and isn't undone.

They later accidentally meet David who is a human male again with no memory of the ordeal as a rabbit girl and very confused by his encounter with Jon and Karyn but still somehow remains a kinder, gentler, more understanding and reasonable person and nice to Jon despite Jon's odd appearance which is now very alarming to him since there are no transformed humans on Earth any more.

Meanwhile Karyn has buyers remorse about changing back and wants to be a catgirl again, she came to like it and is truamatized by having lost her tail, and asks the ancient sphinx who is in control of the stone to explicitly turn her into a catgirl, and the sphinx to the surprise of Karyn but of no one reading wishes for Karyn to turn into a sphinx, justifying it by insisting she gave Karyn what she wanted since a female sphinx is still a type of catgirl. Karyn is angry at first, but Jon and Karyn, looking each over in sphinx form suddenly both seem very distracted and smitten by each other and both just lose control and start making out in the park and after a bit of a tussle, neither one of them is actually down about the new state of affairs.

Training ensues to teach Jon and Karyn to use their sphinx powers under the direction of the shadows and ancient sphinx directly, is met with success. However, contrary to the ancient Sphinx's plans, Jon now suddenly has a huge amount of leverage over the ancient Sphinx because that includes shapeshifting abilities and Jon can actually change back to his original body even though he's in a sense still a female sphinx merely exercising her shapeshifting ability, and doesn't actually need to have 3 generations of sphinxes and reproduce as a female sphinx to change back because he doesn't need a wish from the stone in order to do it. However, he feels sympathy for the ancient sphinx and also has become more attached to his/her female sphinx physical form and lives a dual existence between two species and genders, with he and Karyn as significant others. Jon and Karyn return a few months later, both of them in female sphinx form, heavily pregnant with each others' litters, to tell the ancient sphinx that they're actually going to be giving her exactly what she wanted anyway, eventually at least, but want her help with further generations, since of course they don't want it to involve incest, and the ancient sphinx is overjoyed to learn her species will return and they will oblige her desire even though they didn't have to.

Then 50 years later, and Jon and Karyn, appearing to still be teenagers and in human form, are at a wedding in the same park as the statue sphinx, who suddenly de-fossilizes and becomes living flesh again. She is so amazed to be living again, and is surprised that none of the people at the wedding aren't surprised by this. Until Jon tells her "don't you realize who all these people are? Everyone, let's show her." Everyone at the wedding transforms to their 'true forms', to sphinxes before her eyes, for they are Jon's extended family, hundreds of them. The ancient sphinx breaks down crying and Jon and Karyn hug her, she hands Jon the magic stone after holding it for 50 years, and then they make her a sort of guest of honor at the ceremony.

It's how I'd have it go at least. Maybe I'll write it up eventually.

Warning to anyone reading this. I consider this to be the last canonical chapter. It just degenerates from here on out into crap (I'll be generous and just call it really bad furry filler) and it is all written by catprog. I've had my problems with Chompy and nothingsp, but catprog proves to be really, not capable or interested in wrapping this thing up in a reasonable way or at all really. Please don't waste your time on it.

But anyone who has made it this far, if you wanted to finish it yourself, I think this right here is the right place to do it from. And if anyone comes along after that, don't waste your time with what is here now, namely the "Back to the sphinx" branch with 24 pages or "Karyn and Jon" singleton with 1 page.

Warning to anyone else here. I just looked forward and everything from this point forward was written by catprog and it just degenerates into crap from here on out. No end of the story. It wasn't even far from a resolution. What a rotten disappointment. It was good for a long while.

Ugh. At this point it is obvious this catprog is a hardcore furry and is trying to ruin the story. Why? Just why.... it's been a good story since BroomB wrestled it away from nothingsp's original.... and very similar.... intentions for it and steered it in a good direction. For the good of the world, take some saltpeter catprog, and some cold showers. A little bit of furry stuff is fine if it is tasteful, and a little bit of adult theme stuff is fine if it is tasteful, but you obviously don't even have a clue where that line is.

Oh no, don't throw in some complication like this so late in the story.

But you know, it seems to me, at this point, that since being a sphinx apparently comes with magic powers and one of those powers is shapeshifting powers, and another is a very slow aging rate, it really would make no sense for Jon to have any motivation to wish to change back, and there's also no reason Jon needs to breed at all, let alone have great-grandchildren as a sphinx. As soon as Jon gets control of the shapeshifting powers, she, or he, can simply change back to whatever body he wants to have. And since the wish was "I wish that any wish that would change the sphinx currently known as Jon would fail unless she has great grand children that are sphinxes", that was not a wish prohibiting Jon shapeshifting, just being wished to be changed. Once Jon gets control of those natural powers, he can be human and male if he wants, and have a much longer lifespan, and wishing to be changed from sphinx back to human male would effectively just be a wish to lose his supernatural powers. Why would anyone want to do that? Just keep the powers right?

Oh. I guess page 19069 wasn't canonical here then. Because here Sally is female. It did branch off one time but I interpreted that to just mean that it was what happened at the party.

No. David didn't get an age boost, he got regressed several years, they said that repeatedly. Seriously you've got to do a better job of reading and understanding previous chapters.

Funny how all these male characters change sex and it's always permanent, when the odds are supposed to be only 20% of changing, much less of a sex change, and even then it's supposed to be temporary at least half of the time. But deus ex machina I guess.

Another inconsistency. In an early episode, they said there were several other sphinxes just in Jon's state alone. It was I think in the first 10 pages of this story. I think they said there were 4. That would imply there are at least several hundred on Earth. Of course, you can use the stone to turn regular humans into more, and it probably wouldn't be hard to find willing volunteers. And of course there's no reason they shouldn't be able to just instantly wish an offspring into existence without actually gestating it inside her body.

Cutting it out of the statue's grip with tools? That's the best they can think of? They can still touch it even if they can't pry it loose, just wish it to be teleported one foot to the side.

Please change all occurrences of the word wonder to wander in this page. Also, did you know, rabbits actually hate carrots. They'll eat the green leafy part but not the root. Also why it is implausible there wouldn't be food for the rabbit around, they typically literally live off of grass or almost any other green plants. The rabbit wouldn't be searching for food and asking for it, and offering it carrots would be the last thing it'd want.

Yikes. We have a new writer too. Well, the good news Jon is you're going to solve your problem. The bad news is that it is going to take a certain amount of time and you'll have to do some things you really don't want to do. Though if she's creative Jon could cheat in the intent of this wish: instantly materialize an offspring into existence without birthing it with the help of the stone, materialize that offspring's offspring, and materialize that offspring's offspring, and then fix the common cold issue. But it also kind of ruins the story, because now it removes all the important uncertainty in the future of the story. We now know Jon is going to successfully get the stone back and any further quest is now irrelevant because it is predestined she'll get the rock back. What room is there left for an actual story from here on out then? We already know the outcome, Jon gets the stone back. Well, maybe some other writers will be able to fix that mess and keep it interesting.

Oh it was so HARD for her to FORGIVE him, when he could have easily TURNED HER IN for bullying Jon the day before and said "well if you put this on my permanent record, make sure to put that down in David's". And Matt wasn't even bullying her, just spreading information she wanted to keep secret that he didn't know she wanted to keep secret because he's dense. David should consider herself in Matt's debt, not the other way around.

Ugh. Chompy really needs to read the previous material better. "What have I done Karyn," .... Karyn was the one that did this, wishing for the common cold to be replaced with something else. "a minor change, much like Karyn and Sarah" ... they just said in the previous page that Sarah was more animal-like than Jon is, and earlier they said she had a full fox muzzle. I skipped some slow going tedious school chapters but I'll bet Chompy is the one that accidentally rewrote Sarah as a foxgirl instead of a rabbitgirl too. Your inattentiveness to detail is screwing things up Chompy, and the other writers are trying to oblige you on it but you ain't making it easy for them.

nothingsp also obviously trying to work with Chompy's weak reading comprehension skills, awkwardly retconning it here into it being telepathic communication instead of the cat actually talking, kind of sad that he had to do that, and it's painfully obvious that's what happened here. Bet BroomB wouldn't have made that mistake, he seems to be the most talented one here.

I just looked back and confirmed that David was the one antagonizing Jon for being changed into a female, just out of the blue, bullying someone who is already hurting and kicking them when they're down for fun. Suddenly 100% of my sympathy for David has evaporated. And here I was irked by David's mother so much. On second thought it's great that she changed this way and is getting a taste of her own medicine, she deserved every bit of it, couldn't happen to a more deserving individual, wish he'd changed even more after the experimental treatment failed than just getting a 3rd tit, wish he'd changed into a freaking pokemon or something. Though perhaps she'll get a meaningful confrontation with Jon now and break down and apologize and redeem herself just the tiniest bit.

2nd to last paragraph, from #29 "Jon and the Cat" or "Catfight?" depending on which title you use, Karyn says "'Kitten' indeed". She was mocking Jon for reacting the way she did and agreeing with the cat. Jon at no point said "kitten", all Jon said after the cat started talking was "Y-you can talk!?" and "A-are you...are you changed?". So there's no way to interpret this any way other than Karyn having directly heard the cat's comment calling Jon a kitten. It also said the cat was being sarcastic in retorting "No, you're just imagining it." when Jon said "Y-you can talk!?". So yes, the cat was talking out loud in English, not telepathically.