#they are both old and grumpy and extremely violent

[marinecorvid]

2.5.24 - some weird bird sketches I did instead of sleeping

[the-artist-grimm]

Closeup plus basic notes of the lamb's room from my Starfall comic! Anthea's got a room in the attic of the temple

Also extra notes! Placing under Read More just to keep things tidy

The One Who Waits Alter

Anthea started worshipping TOWW shortly after entering Ratau's care. The rat hadn't exactly planned on telling his freshly orphaned, somewhat traumatized ward that their new guardian was previously a cult leader, but Anthea discovered some of his old books on the lost 5th Bishop of Death one day and Ratau was left little choice but to explain. The book was an exact copy of an extremely old, likely from right before Narinder was imprisoned, text that depicted the god of death as a kind, patient being, which for the lamb whose family had died in the most violent way possible quickly became a comfort. It contrasted Ratau's own memories of a somewhat more reserved, stern god, but since it made Anthea happier he decided to let it be. Anthea hasn't missed a nightly prayer ever since, and still does it before bed despite now having direct access to the god himself. The layout was one they read from that old book, which stated that a pentagram wreath was to hang between an evenly divided four candles. Unwritten however was the reasoning-the center was Death, and on either side his siblings who ruled over Life. They were meant to be lit in honor of the siblings who took care of the mortals Narinder would eventually receive after death.

Stars and Starmap

Back when he was still alive the lamb's father, Aries, would take Anthea with him on supply runs knowing they didn't get much one on one time otherwise with their younger siblings around. They'd sometimes be out overnight so the two would go stargazing, and its something the lamb still holds dear. Their original copy of the book, 'A Story of Stars' was one of his last gifts to them which even while he was alive Anthea was super careful with it since books are hard to get, but their brothers kinda colored all over it while Anthea was out gathering supplies shortly after his death one time. The lamb played it off and shared with them after as a 'oh they're little and just miss dad its ok' type of thing, but it was kinda reluctantly, with them being secretly upset about it whenever they saw scribbles all over their favorite illustrations while reading to the kids. It burned with their old life, and now Anthea would give anything to have those scribbled pages back.

Sleep Potions and Herbs

The lamb suffers from sleep problems and often brews their own remedies. They know not to take them often since they're kinda really strong-like once they kick in they literally just pass out, but they keep them around for when nightmares get bad. They know a few other remedies from Flinky, since he used to double as both Ratau's right hand and cult medic. Antidotes, pain tonics, basic essentials for when you don't have a doctor.

The Crown

Gonna make a silly doodle comic but after an uh...awkward incident with Narinder calling the lamb while they were dressing one morning the two made a deal in regards to his being able to see through the crown-if the crown is off and facing a wall it means the lamb needs privacy and he's to try again later or until they call back unless told otherwise. Look he may be a bit of a grumpy god but Shamura raised at least one brother to be a gentleman lol

Hope Chest

In sheep culture weaving/knitting with wool was a huge thing, especially for ewes, like most learned from the time they could walk from their mothers. After coming of age most would start keeping a chest they'd gradually fill with handmade linens, blankets, ect. for their future homes after marriage, and it was something Ratau encouraged Anthea to do since he didn't want them to just drop their culture. They still got a loom over at his place since it's hard to move, though they do have knitting needles in the chest.

Books

Books are somewhat hard to come by if you're not in one of the Bishops' cults where they have scribes so Anthea tends to collect any and all they find

Ratau's Family Crest

Given to the lamb on their 18th birthday. Rats have family crests tattooed onto their foreheads at 18, and since he'd essentially adopted Anthea Ratau thought it was fitting to give them something similar but not permanent. It fell off during their execution, but they made sure to go back and grab it after downing the heretics that attacked after resurrection. They still wear it now under their tunic

[popgirlyartist]

Unhinged Character

I have made a character for the past year and haven't posted since I was out online, and here's our characters I haven't posted.

Charlotte Silver Doomary

She's a grumpy little teenager who doesn't even care about anything, and she loves to see people suffer and pain. She was a sweet girl back then when she was four or five, but now she was a grumpy insulted teenager before her childhood trauma. She is a troublemaker at that point, She likes to cause trouble everywhere she starts, She sometimes gets so cruel at this moment.

Trait

She was an only child.

She mostly gets grumpy.

has cigarette burns on both her legs (by her uncle).

She has pupaphobia and acrophobia (have that fear since childhood).

Sometimes, she talks about the worst thing that could happen to their life.

When someone insults her, she insults them back.

She does not give a shit to everyone or everything.

her favorite vegetable is beetroot.

She hates the color pink.

Two parts of the pigtails have been dyed black.

She's half albino and a Caucasian.

She hates people who just disrespect her boundaries.

Emotionally Cold.

Clothing

Nightgown | Two causal clothes | Summer outfit | Pretty Dress

Items

Butterfly knife

Notebook.

Pencil.

Jar.

Phone.

Backpack.

—

Jenny Clarkson Sweetpuff

Jenny was an agitated girl who had anger issues and had no chill of her habit. She even physically and verbally assaults people when she gets angry. She always complains about her family life. She gets ignored and tormented for too long, She'll get revenge on them for what they did to her.

Trait

She gets extremely jealous sometimes.

She has six brothers.

She has family issues ( including her father ).

Does not like people interrupting her boundaries.

She's extremely emotional.

She gets so mad easily when someone agitates her or picks on her.

Emotionally sociopathic.

Have Existential Crisis.

Has peanut allergies.

She is afraid of organic worms (because she is uncomfortable with worms, but not the one that is gummy)

She's a sneaky girl.

She has a badass singing voice.

Have amazing dance moves.

Mostly, sometimes she gets so cruel.

She violently screamed like a manic the second time.

Clothing

| Causal Clothes | Winters Clothes | PJ | Summer Outfit | Popstar Uniform |

Extra:

She wears a black sweater when she depressed.

Items

Mood ring

Bag

Notebook

Pencil

Brass knuckles (reason why: She beat the crap out of the old man in rage and then loot him)

Phone

—

Jina Backlin

Jina with a J has good tactics. She floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. She has a journey for Justice and Wisdom, She practiced days and days to become a one and only brave person in the world. She likes to talk facts about things she knows because she studied by reading a book of history and/or seeing Wikipedia. She likes to fight with her lives and protecting she cares.

Trait

She has complex PTSD

She does tai chi.

She has a birthmark and two scars on her back.

Is an outsider.

She loves listening to Lofi's music, It makes her feel chill.

She is a fast cook.

She has a spiritual ego on her.

She has entered stealth mode when she's trying to stay quiet.

She respects everything if everything goes wrong.

Experts in problem-solving.

Clothing

Her ninja / karate outfit

Her casual outfit.

Items

Ninja stuff.

Smoke bombs.

Phone.

Journal.

—

What do they have in common

Both of them have a terrible lifestyle, and both of them had childhood trauma when they were young

Both Jina and Jenny have amazing talent.

Charlotte and Jenny are cruel girls

I haven't posted for years. I will post it another time.

PS. Sorry for the long post.

[rainbowdelicartz]

Meet Natalie Winchester: Glenda's Girlfriend and a grumpy, aloof goth with a resting "I wanna kill everyone in this room" face!

She is a notorious town troublemaker and problem child to pretty much everyone around her, to the point where the locals of OceanBerry and people in the schools she's gone to (cuz she's been suspended/expelled from a LOT of them) call her The Black Berry Child due her extreme dark, hateful and violent nature that even surpasses Glenda's darkness by quite a bit (Glenda lowkey idolizes her due to this)

That's why when they both met at the OceanBerry Pond when they were both four years old (as Natalie had lived there all her life at this point) and immediately connected due to their similar interests in dark topics, dolls, and killing frogs and field mice they'd find lol

And they've been glued hip to hip practically ever since! In their teen years, they commit various crimes together like robbery, vandalism, graffiti, and beating people up with baseball bats. They also eventually started to run a Fight Club for females/female aligning folks in Hackensack!

She happens to come from a fairly rich family that had moved to Oceanberry before she was born for the rural lifestyle her family wanted to adopt for themselves, her family consists of her mom, dad, and her two younger twin sisters named May and Luna. Natalie is very quiet and not very sociable with her family and only feels close to her sisters, even if they annoy her a lot of the time. For these reasons, she sees Glenda's family as more of her family than her actual family

Natalie currently works as a Hot Topic cashier (which is located inside the Hackensack Mall) and always comes home with any kind of (stolen) merchandise that she and Glenda find interest in and both are currently saving money to buy a secret location for their Fight Club meetings

[ART COMMISSIONS ARE OPEN!!!]

[platonic-pals-punchout]

Hunter x Hunter (anime & manga) / Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self-Aware (machinima...?)

Gon Freecss & Killua Zoldyck:

God where do I even start. They are so insanely devoted to each other from the beginning, within the first arc Killua proves that he's ready and willing to kill for Gon and protect him no matter what. They go through so much together over the course of the series, and even though they have other friends it's the pair of them that are inseparable. They are both insanely devoted to one another and are willing to go extreme lengths to protect their friendship.

Dr Coomer & Bubby:

theyre beloved characters but their friendship is so underrated! grumpy old coward and sunny sweet old man whos secretly violent is a great dynamic

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

I followed your advice and submitted Vladia before the deadline with the infodump incomplete, so he it is in full:

Background Lore required to understand Valdia:

Uryuom are an alien species (imagine standard little grey alien but with antennae & a tail) that has single anatomical sex but uses minor shapeshifting magic to present their different gender identities, and each lays half an egg that can be fertilized by the DNA of 2+ donors from any species (recorded max number is 12 donors). When all of the DNA donors are Uryuom, and Uryuom is born from the egg. When none of the DNA donors are Uryuom, a Roaisol Seyunolu (Lesser Chimera) is born from the egg. When the DNA donors include both an Uryuom and a non-Uryuom, Tulougol Seyunolu (Greater Chimera) is born from the egg. Seyunolu can shapeshift between the forms of their different DNA donor species (except with furry antennae), and Tulougol Seyunolu can also shapeshift into the form of any transformation enchantment that has been used on them (because of their Uryuom DNA).

About Vladia:

Vladia is a Tulougol Seyunolu (Greater Chimera) who in addition to being part Human and Uryuom, has DNA from several bats, owls, hawks and even a leopard. Unlike the other Seyunolu of the created by Project Lycanthrope (a secret project that attempted to use Seyunolu as assassins), Vladia (then known as "Vlad") was permanently stuck in her (amab) hybrid form because her extremely high number of different DNA donors made shifting into full (amab) human form too complex/dangerously to pull-off without potentially killing her. As a result, Vladia was unable to interact with society due to her monstrous appearance, and felt constantly numb due to the pain of attempting to turn full human desensitizing her to all other forms of pain. Needless to say, none of this was good for her mental health, and she was previously manipulated into working for a charismatic super evil magical monster/cult leader.

However, after said monster/cult leader was defeated, Vladia was hit with Ellen Dunkel's magical beam of turn-you-into-a-hot-girl. Because Vladia is part Uryuom, she absorbed the magical enchantment, making it permanent unless she purposefully shapeshifted out of it. With the transformation being the first time in her life her body was fully human (not even having the furry antennae she would have had if she was capable of shifting into human by herself), and also seeming to have undone her body’s extreme desensitization, Vladia had no desire to try shapeshifting just to appear male again when there was no absolute guarantee that her previous problem with shapeshifting nearly killing her wouldn’t persist (despite the fact that theoretically the magic beam should have stabilized her shapeshifting powers).

Furthermore, in her own words: “So what?! I’m Human now, and I’m not risking death so I can be more similar to the way I was! I hate what I was! I’ve never been a man in my life as far as I’m concerned!”. Happy in her new form, she took on the name Vladia and mellowed from being borderline-murderously violent to just being grumpy and a bit antisocial, having formed a found family with the other survivors of Project Lycanthrope. She is currently a trainee with the paranormal division of the government agency that helped defeat/rescued her from her old evil boss.

Thank you for the propaganda! Vladia was one of several characters from El Goonish Shive who only got one or two nominations, so unfortunately she won't be in the tournament.

Enjoy a Vladia from the EGS sketchbook:

[angsty-prompt-hole]

i saw you mention some ocs in that tag-the-oc that’s always on your mind. i’d love to hear a little bit about them!

Oooo yes I believe I mentioned Haven in that one. She is one of my favorite OCs and she lives rent free in my head constantly.

There's an old ask where i rambled about her on my blog somewhere but I'm banished to mobile and can't search for it right now, so I'll just ramble away again lmao. One day she'll get a proper character introduction, but I'm waiting to do that for Reasons.

The short version is that she got involved in some crazy stuff when she was in her mid-20's because her dad had gone missing, and when his body was found, there was a bunch of weird stuff with him. It all ended with Haven being tormented by an eldritch monstrosity that turned her into something less than human, an immortal being with black scleras and fractured sanity.

After that, she became a bit of an interdimensional bounty hunter and started hunting down people associated with the entity. She didn't want them to continue to harm people.

Along the way, she ended up accidentally adopting two different children (moreso she tried to get them to someone who could actually take care of them but they got extremely attached to her and refused to leave) and she befriended a phoenix named Fenris. She also had a significant other named Liam at one point, but tragic circumstances left him permanently incapacitated, which really did not help her fragile mental state.

Haven isn't her real name and is just one in a long line of aliases she's used over the centuries, and by the time she started using that name she'd almost completely forgotten her real name.

She's a very grumpy and sarcastic person and tends to come off as excessively violent, aggressive, and hard to work with, but she does have a softer side. It's hard to get to, but it's there.

She appears in a lot of my WIPs (Rot and Ruin and Kiriska's Story being the main ones, but she cameos in a lot of other places) and she does have her own thing I'm planning that isn't really a writing thing so it's never really talked about here, but it goes through her backstory and what happened to her that led to her being turned.

This is what she looks like (art by @birdy-the-artist ):

Her metal hand is a prosthetic, and the heterochromia was also a physical side effect of being turned. Originally, both of her eyes were hazel. The dog tags she's wearing belonged to Liam.

[the-whispers-of-death]

I-

I'm just gonna continue

STONE KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS

Callsign: Luna

"Name": Caelum

Date of birth: 1970, April 20

Height: 6'10

Ethnicity: Japanese, Romani

Enhancements: Speed, Extreme accelerated self-healing, night vision, [REDACTED], [REDACTED],[REDACTED], [REDACTED]

Dry ass mf. Every time Prince tells a joke, he'll just go "Ha. That's funny." But there's no humor or emotion in his tone. People think he's being mean or sarcastic, but that's just how he sounds like. Very blunt as well. He's not the person you want to go to if you want comfort. Him on the battlefield, however, is very different. He gets violent. Grotesquely violent. Not above biting a man's throat out. He gets kinda crazy. Like laughing maniacally while killing soldiers crazy. Like licking the blood of his enemies off of him crazy. Maniac.

In a secluded area of the Eclipse base is a garden with a large variety of plants run by a botanist. One of those plants is a Marijuana bush that Luna has named Daria. And Luna deeply appreciates Daria. So much so that when he spends a lot of time with her, he'll go back to the main kitchen of the Eclipse base and start making a shit ton of food. The rest of the Eclipse soldiers like it when this happens because Luna is a God in the kitchen. Everyone is confused by Luna because he's very mysterious and mystical.

Callsign: Pleurotus

"Name": Terra (Prince named him)

Date of birth: 1990, May 11

Height: 5'5

Ethnicity: Jamaican, Filipino

Enhancements: Soft bones, paralyzing saliva, animal whisperer, play dead

His nickname is opossum man. He's best friends with Luna, and both of them head to the garden to check out the plants. Luna checks out Daria and Pleurotus (Uro for short) checks out the cool mushrooms in the very back! :D he's probably the most laid back even tho he's aware that he has no free will, and he's definitely the person you want to go to when you need comfort. Extremely wise and extremely smart and sweet. Can also throw down in the kitchen

Callsign: Melody

Date of birth: 1994

Height: 5'10

Ethnicity: Dominican/Argentinian

Enhancements: Echolocation, heightened hearing, supreme stealth, night vision, great balance, speed

Cheerful. Absolute golden retriever. Himbo? Himbo. He follows Dragon around everywhere he goes. He thinks Dragon is so cool. Super protective over the rest of the Eclipse soldiers. Super emotionally intelligent. Flirts a lot, but he doesn't realize he's flirting. A naturally charming and handsome man

Eclipse staff!

Name: Miriam Duvall

Date of birth: 1989, October 1

Height: 4'11

Ethnicity: Taiwanese

Is the one who planted Daria. tries to keep it on the downlow and is failing. Terrible at lying. She's too honest. Has a pet snake named Sarah. Has two kids. Anxious and constantly worried. People stress her out.

Phoenix Olivier Constello

Date of birth: 1968 [REDACTED], [REDACTED]

Height: 6'8 but he is also constructed hunched over and has terrible posture

Ethnicity: Russian/Mongolian

Grumpy old man. Coffee is always in his hand. Has all the fluffy animal slippers. Bunnies, cats, chicks, pigs, you name it. Always tired and always working. Scruffy. Very thick Russian accent. Harsh but hes kind once he knows you long enough. Him, Luna, Uro, and Antares always hang out. Talking about random shit. Three of them have been on earth for so long, and Uro already talks like a wise old man so they get along great. Phoenix is a proud father of 3 cats as well

-🔮

You: Stone, keep it in your pants.

Stone: You can't say that and then talk about two more older men.

I'm trying to keep the man away from Antares, Luna, and Phoenix, but I think I'm losing that battle.

Python and Miriam can bond over having pet snakes (he has both a corn snake and a ball python, yes the ball python is the entire reason why he's called "Python" instead of "Snake").

I too think Dragon is cool, so me and Melody are in the same boat in that respect. Also, love the fact Melody is a himbo, we love himbos here.

Pleurotus sounds like he's an excellent cuddler. I want to lay on top of him. (And so does Heartthrob honestly, but I'm not entirely sure why he decided to make an appearance.)

[skelegun]

The first Ewok movie, Caravan of Courage, was a pretty light hearted fantasy adventure story. A spaceship crashes on the forest moon Endor, inside it was a family consisting of a young girl named Cindel, her brother Mace, and their mom and dad. Cindel and Mace are rescued by Wicket and his tribe of Ewoks from Return of the Jedi. The Ewoks agree to help out Cindel and Mace in rescuing their mom and dad which they learn the location of using a magic crystal. So they go on a quest which is pretty boring, until they go to a spider cave which is kinda fun, then they end up rescuing the parents from a giant ogre monster. One of the Ewoks sacrifices himself, and Mace ends up being the one that delivers the blow that sends the ogre tumbling off a ledge into an abyss. Overall it’s a happy ending to charming little story. A little kid might get upset that an Ewok dies, and the little boy in does kills a monster but it’s an extremely tame movie.

The second movie, Battle for Endor, is like a huge step up in terms of storytelling and also surprisingly way more violent. It starts off with Cindel telling Wicket that their family’s spaceship is almost fixed and they will be leaving soon, but then suddenly the Ewok village gets attacked by raiders, and Cindel’s family (including her brother Mace who is like 12 at most) gets brutally murdered. Mace does manage to kill some of them with his blaster before getting taken out by a blaster himself. Cindel and Wicket manage to escape while the rest of the Ewoks are either captured or killed and the village destroyed. I don’t want to be one of those “omg a bad thing happened in a kids movie” people, but seeing Mace gunning down marauders next to the corpse of his mother while telling his young sister to flee is kinda fucked then her getting a like a beep on her smart watch thing telling her that his life signs stopped is kinda fucked. Also she witnesses her dad get murdered. Cindel develops PTSD from this as seen by her nightmares of raiders coming to kill her, and overall the movie has sorta theme about letting go, it’s not super well explored, but it’s there. During the movie her and Wicket meet a grumpy old man named Noa who quickly warms up to the two and lets them stay with him. Noa and a friend crashed on Endor decades ago and got separated, so Noa and Cindel both relate to each other. The rest of the plot isn’t that interesting, basically a witch working for the bad guys (I’m just gunna call them orcs from now on) kidnaps Cindel because she thinks that Cindel might help them idk… The Orc King’s plan doesn’t really make sense, because he’s an idiot. Anyways Noa and Wicket launch a daring raid on the Orc castle (it’s literally a medieval castle), and free the Ewoks and Cindel. Noa also gets some closure on what happened to his friend decades ago (orcs killed him, kept his skeleton chained up for decoration I guess), the Orcs catch wind of what’s going on and launch an attack on the newly freed Ewoks, the Ewoks use their usual bows and arrows and log traps to take out a bunch of the orcs, before switching to using blasters gathered from the fallen orcs to finish the rest off. Noa and the Orc king have a duel which was suprisingly well shot, and Wicket uses a slingshot and hits the witch’s magic ring which the Orc King was wearing as a necklace, which causes the Orc King to like get turned into a charred husk, idk witch magic I guess. Cindel and Nao fix the spaceship, and with tears her in eyes she says goodbye to her bestfriend Wicket vowing that some day she will return.

Overall the second movie is way closer to being a real movie than the first one was. They were both made for TV affairs, the first definately feels it, but the second could have passed as an actual theatrical movie. Like I’ve seen 80s scifi films that got theatrical runs that looked way worse and had a lot less going on. Also I really appreciate that Cindel’s family was just dead for real, and didn’t come back magically at the end or anything. If Dave Feloni had written that movie, when the Orc King was about to kill Noa in their duel, instead of Wicket saving him, he would have had someone shoot the Orc King from off screen and he would fall over and Mace would be inexplicably standing there holding a blaster. Also the Ewok that died in the first movie would be there too for some reason. It’s nuts to me that this cheap kids movie from the late 80s felt edgier than the goddamn Boba Fett show.

[sonicjustbecause]

Is what I'm thinking for a while about Sonic. Sega treats Sonic like Disney treats Mickey.

I remember Mickey is mischevious, Goofy is dumb, Donald is a boaster, Scrooge is stingy and so on... this is what I learned from american cartoons. Yet sometimes even american cartoons explore different ideas/solution, like when Goofy becomes a skilled soccer player.

But a lot of Disney's stuff (at leasts comics involving Mickey's and the others) is handled by italians. Italians made a mess with some personality, they made Goofy smarter and Donald more skilled and not just a boaster, while Scrooge is still stingy. They also turned Mickey into a professional detective. I wonder where this choices comes from.

Huey, Dewey and Louie and other characters are IC.

I prefer American Disney choices because they're funnier, but Disney seems fine with italian interpretation and I used to enjoy Disney comics as a kid (not much today, they're for kids only, apparently. Old stories were also funnier, a more advanced and richer language, less ).

There are also things that Italian fixed. This is mount Vesuvius, a VEI-6 volcano:

According to Americans mount Vesuvius is this

In Italian comics Vesuvius was drawn correctly. Is only active instead of dormant.

I believe things are about the same for Sonic. They have guidelines on how characters are and behaved. Yet we get different results even when we look at Japanese media only.

Sonic's features that I noticed most is his kindness But in Sonic X he is more a loner and taciturn compared to SA2, although usually happy. In SA2 he is a bit grumpy, especially toward Shadow. In Chousoku Sonic he is loud, silly and always in company with the others.

In SA2 Shadow always behaves calmy but is depressed and suicidal. In Sonic X he can be grumpy and violent in the very same situation we see him keeping his cool in SA2. In Chousoku Sonic he is a hooligan but is mostly in good mood and funny.

If we look at western media, some result may differ further, but I think geography matters. Italy and USA (talking about Disney) are both western countries, yet there is a noticeable difference in how characters are handled. I guess is normal. If Sega handles Sonic to China or to SK, I'm sure he and his friend will be very different than what we see in Sonic X and so on...

The thing I noticed most in western Sonic is that often there a hint of sadness and melancholy in him that we don't see in Japanese Sonic. Is most noticeable in the movie, but you could perceive it in Sonic frontiers and Sonic prime (more subtle in frontiers).

He also talks more. But many times his talkativeness is just the mask he uses to hide his vulnerable self. You must listen to what he never says.

Is very different in Archie, Fleetway and IDW, I think the worst portrayal of him. In both Archie, Fleetway and IDW Sonic is arrogant, very conceited and even a bully (Bella in IDW, Shadow in Archie, Tails in Fleetway are only three of Sonic victims). Of those three, I think the 'less worse' (Italian 'meno peggio') is IDW Sonic who is more reserved.

Sonic raising his quills when startled is a very hedgehog-like behaviour. I must admit this is a nice touch.

We can talk about Shadow too, he goes to the two extreme. I don't know about Fleetway Shadow. But Archie Shadow I would say is pratically Sonic. Very melancholic, but is like to read about Sonic, not Shadow. IDW Shadow is meme material. He is conceited, immature, dumb and self destructive, but not in the suicidal way of early Shadow who is depressed, is just the idiot that wants to prove his value and end to only harm himself without being helpful.

We didn't see Movie Shadow yet but we have Prime Shadow. Pretty much he follows the guidelines, however his softer side is underlined despite his particularly menacing gaze and his evil smile, a contrast I love.

From TV tropes

All of it suits Prime Shadow.

Is hard to choose who I prefer. I can say easily I dislike all Archie/Fleetway, a bit less IDW Sonic. My favourite version of Sonic is Movie Sonic. Taling about Shadow is more complicated, I see him as many piece of a puzzle that should be build and there are still missing pieces, not because is a bad character, but because there are still things about him you won't and will never understand.

my unpopular opinion is that i think franchise fans should place less emphasis on canon concistency and always in character writing just because like. it´s already hard for several works by the same author to be consistent (if you´ve had to check your plot for plot holes you know this) i think consistency with several authors over a period of *decades* is just near impossible

[eulangelo]

callout for @genderfluidlucifer

google docs

tw for transmisogyny + TERFs + emotional manipulation

Transmisogyny

Lucifer is a huge transmisogynist who will complain 24/7 about how TERFs hurt the ace community, but the moment @randomclustermissile , a trans girl (who is not an exclusionist at all) tries to point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles (in the most vague and general way possible, without pointing fingers nor calling anyone names) Lucifer will immediatly jump to block her and so they did with me (another inclusionist) and i have to suppose to everyone else who agreed with that post, even arriving to vagueing about us in private group chats to suggest that we were “sympathizing with exclusionists”. all because we dared point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles. lucifer is TME but apparently they think they’re the authority on TERFs and their talking points but actual trans women are not, according to them, since this is the stuff that they would go and spew to other people. (screenshots from @enbyoctoling​)

here’s more examples of Lucifer (again, a transmasc person) going deep in detail about how according to them, TERFs/SWERFs hate aro/ace people and are an active threat to us

1. link

[Image ID: Three screenshots of a post by Genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot is of a paragraph that reads, "Hey. So I can actually answer this. Anon your commentary about how you thought terfs would approve of sex repulsed aces is sort of it. Except...not. Basically terfs hate ace people for not wanting sex in the approved by terfs way. Terfs are actually extremely interested in [forcing] amatonormativity onto everyone. Because for as sex negative as terfs are...they don't want to actually acknowledge or change the fact that amatonormativity is at the root cause of rape culture and misogyny."

The second screenshot is a zoomed in section of the post that reads, "So yeah no I have NO idea where exclus allies are getting this idea from that terfs would even remotely care about the sexual rights of ace people. Terfs generally hate any sexualities in the LGBTQ+ acronym that aren't LGB because they can't force a gender binary onto those sexualities. At least, not as easily. That's why it's actually a massive sign of someone who doesn't call themselves a terf being a crypto terf if they use the term LGB in a positive manner. Along with the term SGA, as it is deliberately exclusive of nonbinary and not inherently SGA centric queer-aligned sexualities. /END ID]

link to the full post, these are just excerpts but the whole thing is just a very long rant about how TERFs hate ace people and so on (i think it’s worth noticing that although the actual post is kinda long, trans women are never once brought op in a conversation about TERFs issues and the only time transmisogyny is mentioned is not relevant to the conversation)

2. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is nothorses. It reads, "Because apparently I have to say it: Testosterone is not a 'violent' hormone. It doesn't make you 'more aggressive' or a worse person, it doesn't make you 'dangerous,' or 'toxic.' Transmascs do not need to be 'warned of the dangers of T.' We do not need to spend our transitions terrified that we're going to become a danger to those around us - that HRT is going to turn us into a monster.

Everyone experiences mood swings during hormonal shifts (pregnancy, menstruation, menopause, estrogen HRT, etc.) and while you might have grumpy moments or feel anger/frustration that you need to learn to handle differently, that doesn't make you a bad person.

Testosterone can change the way you access/process emotions somewhat, but if you're already thoughtful about how you handle your feelings and treat others, you're going to be fine. It's normal to lash out on occasion, by accident, then apologize and work to do better. It doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone on HRT is prone to this, and everyone experiencing hormonal changes is prone to this.

Getting HRT should be positive and affirming; you should not have to spend your entire transition terrified of becoming a monster."

The post then has a reblog by captainlordauditor that reads, "The big danger of T is that needle ouchy." /END ID]

here’s them reblogging from known transmisogynist user @nothorses (once again, the irony that a post about how testosterone is seen as the "aggressive hormone" does not mention transfem at all which are literally the main victims of this rethoric in the first place)

3. link (1), link (2)

[Image ID: Two screenshots of posts by genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot reads, "Queer exclus: We're not repackaging terf rhetoric! Saying that is transmisogynistic! Also queer exclus: Remove the plus from LGBT!" and has tags that say, "I will pay these people to grow some god damn self awareness. Imagine being this dense. Queer discourse." The post has 15 notes.

The second screenshot reads, "Honestly it is so stupid and frustrating to see ace exclus continue to deny that the ace discourse was started by terfs. Proof was given countless times. And a big name terf like galesofnovember even admitted to starting it. Those of you who demand proof but ignore all of this never wanted proof to begin with." and is tagged with, "ace discourse. The post has 38 notes. /END ID]

heres another two post of theirs conflating TERFs with ace exclusionism

4. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblogged post by furbearingbrick. The original poster is boxlizard, Lucifer's old account. The original post reads, "By the way for people still in denial about it, here's galesofnovember, a terf, admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement. She's taking credit for it. Normally if the victims of this behavior weren't ace/aro or other queer identities y'all be ready to rightfully lynch her. But since it's us, y'all just still wanna stamp your feet and go, 'Nuh uh!' instead of acknowledging facts." The part that says, "admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement" is a link to a galesofnovember post.

There is then a reblogged addition from furbearing brick that reads, "archived versions of the receipts" and has two links to the webarchive. The tags read, "Bringing this back since it's apparently still relevant. Terfism mention. Aphobia mention. Queerphobia mention. Blocklist." and has 1,455 notes. /END ID]

this is their post that ive already talked about but basically they found a 52 notes post made by a TERF in 2012 and this one person said "i dont know why i dont get to be the princess of the anti-ace-brigade" and apparently they are convinced that this means TERFs started the ace exclusionism movement and that this is one of their goals. which is insane when TERFs in real life only care about making life miserable for transfem people first and foremost.

5.link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is yu-gay-fudo. It reads, “Just in case you happen to be unaware, some of the “radfem lite” they post to warm you up to their rhetoric, just off the top of my head:

- Ace/aro exclusionism

- Bi exclusionism or claims that bi people are “less queer” bc of “straight passive privilege”

- Saying you have to be dysphoric to identify as transInvalidating nonbinary people

- Calling queer a slur regardless of context, saying people can’t identify as queer, and saying that it can’t be reclaimed

- “Mogai hell”, “kweer”, or otherwise mocking less common labels and claiming they are “just cishets who want to feel special”

- Excluding sex workers from feminist discussions or claiming that sex work is inherently evil

- Basically anyone who thinks they can determine what other people identify as”. The tags read, "queerphobia tw. twerfs tw. no id." and has 70,727 notes. It was reblogged on March 22nd, 2021 /END ID]

another example of conflating radfems to things that, while wrong, have little to nothing to do with them because being a radfem, again, is something very specific that has all to do with transfem oppression.

Emotional manipulation

Lucifer has done nothing but block, break boundaries, spread lies and vague about people, some of which were even mutuals with them knowing they would see the posts. when confronted about it Lucifer's only answer was "just say you hate me and block me" but they actually ended up blocking everyone first, making it impossible for anyone to set some boundaries with them or even just to calmly confront them about anything.

[proof: Io(popncourse) and Lucifer had a disagreement in a shared discord server, which prompted Lucifer to vague Io in a vent post. Io confronted them, as being vagued is one of buns triggers, to which Lucifer initially agreed to delete the vent post, but then proceeded to victimize themself and immediatly blocked Io. later on, Jude(malewifedeckard) was confronted by Lucifer, then after Jude told them “I’m worried that you’ll vague me just like you did with Io” they proceeded to block Jude and vagued about him too. when Io made a post (which was not a callout, it was just bun setting buns boundaries) explaining what Lucifer did, Lucifer immediatly jumped to victimize themself, acting like they were being called out and straight-up lying, even going so far as to say that no one tried to hear them out, which is a blatant lie if you consider the aforementioned Io and Jude’s attempts at doing so, with Lucifer immediatly blocking and cutting ties with the both of them. ] 

(screenshots taken by @popncourse and @malewifedeckard)

as seen in the proof above Lucifer’s behaviour is not ok because they don’t accept any kind of confrontation and immediatly jump to blocking, and after blocking, they'd immediatly go and vague about the people who confronted them pacificly, spreading more lies and painting themself as the victim and even arriving to say “no one hears me out at all” which is simply not something you can say when you block people who are trying to hear you out in the first place.

this is by no means an invitation to go and harass them, send them hate or anything like that. i absolutely don’t want anything even remotely hateful or negative to be sent their way after this post. 

this post was only made because:

1. as an ace person who fully supports the inclusion of aspec identities in the lgbt+ community i don’t want to support an enviroment that costantly downplays transmisogynistic oppression in order to be taken seriously. there are hundreds of ways to make aspec activism without acting like we(as in TME aspecs)are the victims of a system that seeks for the annihilation of transfemenine people in real life everyday. i especially don’t want to support TME individuals who act transfem-friendly but then block any transfem who tries to speak on transmisogyny without a second thought.

2. Lucifer’s behaviour has hurt two friends of mine and i don’t want to associate with someone who actively breaks people’s boundaries without taking accountability when messing up.

3. i cannot associate with someone who spreads lies about me accusing me of sympathizing with exclusionists all while having me blocked so that i can’t see it nor defend me. they complain about people not hearing them out but they’re the very first person who does not try to hear people out, and instead jumps to spread baseless rumors. this is not someone i can nor want to associate with. 

(image descriptions provided by @malewifedeckard)

[ratigan-in-the-wall]

I wanna talk more about my ‘Ace gets to be old’ AU timeline thing so I’m gonna drop some info about it

Like previously stated Ace and Luffy’s monster man genes kick in and they get tall and Sabo ends up the shortest sibling. Sabo is very not pleased with that particular development and he starts wearing boots with higher heels.

I like to think that Ace only got his 3ft growth kick a couple months after the events of Marineford since he could finally sit semi-comfortably in his own skin knowing that the WB Pirates still love and support him despite his genetic history. It first starts as little aches in his bones and nobody realizes that they’re growing pains until he hits his head on a doorframe for the first time.

A couple days after the growth kick was done, ending up on par with Roger’s 9ft height, Ace’s bangs start growing out a light strawberry blonde like Rouge. A small group of WB Pirates tasked themselves with finding information about Ace’s mom, they managed to find a few very faded photos on an island in the South Blue. Ace started weaving red flowers of various sizes into his hair after receiving them. (Y’all can pry this head canon from my cold, dead hands if you don’t like it, Ace deserves the chance to be more like his mom).

Luffy’s growth spurt started during the two years of training but it wasn’t noticeable to him until the return to Sabaody because of everything going on at the time and because he grew very slowly. He didn’t even realize it on his own either, it took Nami pointing out that it was weird to see Luffy of all people have to duck under doorframes to get around. The first time someone tells Luffy that he looks a lot more like Garp it mildly upset him, but he now let’s out a good, strong laugh and either makes a subtle yet extremely violent threat or just straight up ignores it whenever it’s brought up.

Sabo, upset that he’s been left in the dirt by both of his now very tall brothers, was grumpy about it for 3 days after seeing Ace in person for the first time since scrambling to contact him after Marineford, complained to anyone who bothered listening to him about it too, and was downright inconsolable after finding out in Dressrosa that Luffy was also taller than him now.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 23, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Nature Abhors a (Power) Vacuum

Jin Guangshan, Nie Mingjue, and Lan Xichen have gathered to decide what to do about the remaining Wen people and also what to do about the Yin metal. They have not invited Jiang Cheng to this discussion, or blowhard Clan Leader Yao, despite those clans having been hit particularly hard by the Wens in the course of the war. 

The three of them have a conversation about what to do with the Wen captives, showing their different attitudes towards killing.

Jin Guangshan: Killing is awesome, particularly in project management. It's just so efficient. Nie Mingjue: Killing is necessary, and a little bit fun, too. Lan Xichen: Killing is necessary, sadly, but we can randomly spare some women or old people, as a token sign that we’re not monsters. Kind of like when you have a fancy dinner and include a tofu dish for the vegetarians. Nie Mingjue: Nobody likes tofu, Xichen.

Jin Guangshan says he's looking for the Yin Iron and that they can't let any Wens or "ambitious people" get a hold of it. By ambitious people he means Wei Wuxian, not himself and his murder kid. Lan Xichen realizes this right away but doesn't, you know, do anything to contradict him.  Jin Guangshan says he's asked "A-Yao" to look into it. Which is smart, because A-Yao is already in cahoots with Xue Yang, who actually has the piece of Yin Iron they're looking for.

Getting Jiggy With It

Then Jin Guangshan introduces Meng Yao, now renamed Jin Guangyao, in a weird twist on generation names. He has given him the name of a sibling or cousin of his own generation (starting with Guang), rather than a name of the next generation (starting with Zi). JGS says that JGY just recently learned about about being related to him, although we know perfectly well that's not true. 

And they both talk like he appreciates JGY's efficiency and helpfulness, but that's not why JGS has him at his side. He has taken him in because he is a steel-eyed murder bot, not in spite of it. 

(OP does not believe that Jin Guangyao could have been a good person if only his dad had let him hold Jin Ling that one time, as some have argued. Dude killed his own child because there was a chance he might be disabled in a way that could lead to gossip. Dude is a stone cold killer.)

(more after the cut)

In the language of CDrama costume (which is not, precisely, the language of actual historical clothing), Jin Guangyao has chosen to dress as a minister instead of as a chevalier. This is partly an artifact of his mother's ideas about a gentleman. It also suggests that he’s content with the sort of career that's available to a bastard of a noble house--not inheriting the noble title, but having enough favor to rise in power. 

It may also be a ruse to make him seem like he's not a strong cultivator and not a strong fighter, when in fact he is both, at least by the time he’s throwing death chords at Jiang Cheng, much later in the show. 

Mingjue makes all kinds of grumpy faces and snarky remarks to let everyone know that he fucking hates Jin Guangyao.  Xichen agrees to his “nice refugee camp with only a little death” plan, with no qualifications.

Now we get to see Jin Guangyao's manipulation of Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen says that Nie Mingjue wants a plan that’s more killy, because he believes in punishing evil. JGY deliberately misunderstands this, pretending that Lan Xichen said he, JGY, is evil, kind of forcing LXC to reassure him and take his side in an argument that isn’t actually happening. 

They have a little handholding while bowing, and then after Lan Xichen leaves, Jin Guangyao puts on his evil face and has all the prisoners killed behind the big closed door.  

This is done in such a violent fashion that the blood apparently flows up several stairs to the door, and over the tall raised threshold, before flowing downward toward the camera. Some evil is so extreme that even traditional Chinese doorway architecture can’t stop it.

Run To the Rock

Then we go outside to where Wei Wuxian is standing on a rocky outcropping, thinking it would be a good strategic spot to choose if he's ever in a battle where he wants to commit suicide right quick.

Lan Wangji comes to join him and admire the view, not knowing yet that this view, or one a whole lot like it, is going to be seared into his memory for most of his life.

Lan Wangji is becoming more and more committed to Wei Wuxian, more and more inexorably joined to him, but he still doesn't agree with him. So they each have this comfort in each others' presence at the same time as being massively in conflict.

Wei Wuxian asks him what he thinks of all the politicking and murdering. Who is good and who is evil? LWJ doesn't answer because WWX is leaking black smoke, so he grabs him and tells him to concentrate.  Lan Wangji is, incidentally, wearing Princess-Leia quantities of lip gloss.

Lan Wangji asks if Wei Wuxian would like to learn a new tune, "Absterge" according to Netflix. The fuck? [op looks it up in the dictionary]. "To cleanse, especially by wiping." Also known as aftercare. Netflix. Honey. This word is MIDDLE FRENCH. Will you knock it the fuck off?

So anyway, instead of answering his question about who is good and who is evil, LWJ asks if he wants to learn a song called "Cleansing." Wei Wuxian says “hey babe, are you fucking kidding me?” 

His actual words are "you doubt me too?" meaning "you think I also took the missing 4th chunk of Yin iron to make my ugly tiger amulet, rather than obviously having used that giant sword I pulled out of the turtle?"  

Lan Wangji mentally replays Wen Ruohan's questions in his head--the questions he barked at Wei Wuxian right before choking him unconscious--which Lan Wangji also feels entitled to know the answers to. Fuck you, Lan Wangji. He answers WWX with "when did you forge your amulet?" Which is his way of saying "yes, I doubt you."

Wei Wuxian kindly refrains from saying "while we were on a break, bitch" and instead tells him the exact truth--I found a yin iron sword in the turtle--but says it in his patented "make it sound like a lie" way. 

LWJ keeps grilling him, eventually coming out and saying dude, you knew the sword was Yin iron, why did you need to use it?

This is the crucial question--why WWX broke his first promise, to Lan Yi, which was to try to get rid of the Yin Iron. He won’t tell anyone the answer, which is that he needs to use it because he can't cultivate normally, because he lost his golden core. He made a lot of promises before that happened, and he probably expected to keep them. But without his core, everything changed; without his core, he’s a different person, so it’s maybe not fair to expect him to honor his previous promises. 

I’m reminded of my grandfather, who was the oldest son of an old southern US family, with lots of expectations as the firstborn. He went off to WWI as a soldier, expecting to die. He didn’t die, and so from that point on, he regarded his life as a gift. He felt could do whatever he wanted with it, and let go of expectations from before the war. He moved to Paris and took up with a glamorous divorcee 7 years older than him (my Grandma, eventually). 

The actual point of that story, other than OP having cool grandparents, is that when you think you’re going to die, and then you don’t die, your ideas about what you owe to people can change quite a bit. Wei Wuxian expected to die in the Burial Mounds; he expected to die at Nightless City; he expects it, over and over, and each time he doesn’t die, he gets further and further from being what everyone else wants him to be. And--a lot like soldiers returning from a war-- NOBODY in his life knows how to talk to him about it. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to back off, Lan Wangji says why aren't you letting me help you, and they are once again on the edge of the same fight they keep having. Lan Wangji does some impassioned arm holding while Wei Wuxian says he's not like Wen Ruohan. 

Romantic Duet #1

The argument is interrupted by screams and killing, so they go to check it out, and find the Jins hunting down some prisoners for sport. They arrive in time to save two people. Yay?

Jin ZIxun acts like a jerk, as always. The new element is that per Jin Guangshan, anyone concerned with Yin Iron shouldn't be alive.  He says that the Lan and Nie clans agreed, and challenges Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji stops him from responding, grabbing his wrist.

The Jins leave and Wei Wuxian refers back to their earlier conversation, saying there will be more resentful spirits now and that "Rest" is the music to play, not "Cleansing."

He gives Lan Wangji a long look and then pointedly removes Lan Wangji’s hand from his wrist, by holding his hand, which is some next-level mixed signaling. Lan Wangji totally deserves it at this point, though. He keeps pushing and pushing WWX about his cultivation method, but he refuses to discuss the underlying morality of it, or the morality of the killing going on right in front of them. 

WWX walks off, leaving LWJ to stew in his own juices surrounded by a bunch of fresh corpses. 

Lan Wangji fails his saving throw against the guilt trip, and sits his ass down to play Rest, just like Wei Ying told him to. So switchy!  Wei Wuxian, out of sight but not out of earshot, hears him and accompanies him on Chenqing.

This scene is slightly ridiculous and a whole lot sublime. Ridiculous because it's their first time playing music together, so it's a super slow, romantic, extended scene, but they're surrounded by corpses. And not the helpful, friendly, third-wheel-on-a-date type of corpses.

It's sublime because the occasion of their first beautiful, literally magical duet is an argument. And they are joining together to play beautiful romantic music - as a service for the dead. And they are doing it while they are on literally opposite sides of a literal killing field. And Lan Wangji is sitting literally in the middle of a wide open road; the sort of road that they will both reject, metaphorically, later in the show. There is so much about their conflict and their journey that is encapsulated in this one musical moment.

Lan Wangji, by playing the song Wei Wuxian said was needed, is telling WWX that he took his words to heart, that he is listening, even though they're at odds.

WWX, by stopping and playing with him, is acknowledging this. And by settling the dead souls together, they are both reinforcing their dedication to doing what's right even as they both struggle with knowing what that is.

When Other Friendships Have Been Forgot, Ours Will Still Be Hot

Now we have the sworn brothers thing. I understand, plot wise, why this has to happen, but why would Nie Mingjue ever agree to this? Lan Xichen's puppy eyes are just that persuasive?

If they ever crack your spine, drop a line If they ever cut your throat, write a note If you’re ever in a mill and get sawed in half, I won’t laugh (HA HA HA HA)

Tedious Party Time

Now there's a cultivation party, which is about as excruciating to watch as it would be to attend.

Everyone is lining up to praise Jin Guangshan. To be fair, he did provide shelter for most of the smaller clans while the war was going on. So being grateful is appropriate, but Clan Leader Yao practically breaks his own neck kissing Jin ass. Yao says JGY’s contribution was the greatest of the war, adding, "fuck Wei Wuxian; everything is his fault."

The Jiangs show up wearing mourning belts that show off their itty bitty waists, and Jin Guangshan makes shifty eyes like a cartoon landlord when he sees them arrive.

JGS praises Jiang Cheng, and asks when his fancy clan-leader ceremony is going to happen. Jiang Cheng says he's still in mourning so it's not appropriate. JGS is like “Oh...yeah," as if he totally forgot about all the Yunmeng slaughter, and talks up his friendship with Jiang Fengmian. He acts comforting while WWX manages not to barf.

Then the Lan clan shows up and there is nice encouraging chit chat between LXC and JC...

...and just, SO MUCH mournful staring between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

Then the Nies arrive.  Jin Guangshan tells Nie Mingjue he's late, and that everyone's waiting for him. That might be true in the script but it’s clearly bullshit on the screen, where the Lans and the Jiangs are still milling around looking for the coat room.

Nie Mingjue--who, let's remember, JUST swore to be brothers with Jin Guangyao--looks at him like he's something that fell off a garbage truck.  Lan Xichen jumps in to maximize the discomfort by pointing out that Jin Guangyao should address Nie Mingjue as Big Daddy Da-ge from now on.

Then the Jins offer Nie Mingjue the giant fire throne because...he's the leader of the Sunshot campaign, I guess? Of course it's all a manipulation tactic, designed to make him say he won't sit there, so that JGS can elevate himself to head cultivator, or something? And sit in front of the throne but not on it? Cultivator succession seems kinda arbitrary. 

I swear to god, it wasn't until I was clipping this episode that I realized Wen Ruohan had two thrones and they're in different rooms from each other.

Finally everyone goes to sit down, but because there hasn't been enough fucking awkwardness, JGY stops WWX to ask him what's on his mind. WWX asks him why he's not carrying his sword, which made me laugh and laugh. Wei Wuxian must have been just waiting for a chance to ask someone else that question for a change. 

Jin Guangyao says he threw it away, because it was just a random sword, but he really means he had it made into a sneaky murder belt, that he will be using again in 13 to 16 years. They both fake-laugh and trade Mean Girls insults pretend to like each other. 

Everyone wanders around toasting each other. Lan Wangji goes to find Wei Wuxian, after first making sure that his hair looks good.  

Wei Wuxian is lying around on the steps, sprawling and drinking wine, and not, incidentally, looking for Lan Wangji. He continues to not seek him out and Lan Wangji continues to chase after him.

Wei Wuxian says "how about playing Cleansing?" but Lan Wangji says he's learning a new score. It looks like it's going to be another argument, but then Wei Wuxian smiles and kind of praises Lan Wangji for being stubborn. 

Awkward Marriage Proposal

Just then everyone inside starts cheering for Jin Guangshan to give a speech. Jin Guangshan is making a move to marry Jiang Yanli to his son, which is a big time power grab, given that the Jiang Clan is 1. vulnerable and depleted 2. has control of the Yin tiger amulet.

We get a very rare glimpse into Jiang Cheng’s inner mind, where he thinks that saying yes isn’t a great idea, but isn’t sure what to do. This marriage would make his sister happy, but could destroy the Jiang Clan's independence.

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian joins the party just in time to fuck up Jin Guanshan’s plans. Will this teach Jin Guangshan not to invite Wei Wuxian to parties? It will not.  

Soundtrack: Friendship, by Cole Porter (from “Anything Goes”)

Bonus:

[fatehbaz]

The time I met the nicest snapping turtle and the most furious softshell turtle. I was a child. I was forced to go visit some far-removed extended “family,” the kind of passive-aggressive and authoritarian people who took in a distant cousin for a weekend and treated you like an obnoxious dog or something, people who I was only slightly familiar with, which made me uncomfortable. “Family” not being something that I ever consistently had access to, “family” not a concept I was (or am, honestly) used to, “family” being something I only knew less of as time passed. They had a job which they were contracted to do that day. They brought me to a decaying industrial site in northern Appalachia, a paragon of Rust Belt gothic, to clean out the junk from a riverside lot that was scheduled to be redeveloped. My impression:

It felt like that stereotypical scene of pulp Americana, where a middle-aged man sits in a construction job-site trailer, flies buzzing, an old outdated fan from the 1970s unhelpfully churning warm air, and he, face half-obscured in shadow, hires a bunch of 19-year-olds to go to a post-industrial site to “take care of things.” Despite it still being morning, everyone is sweating, nobody is happy. A developer, dealing under the table in cash only, who despite owning several private properties is somehow always on the verge of bankruptcies and calls you from a landline after midnight on Tuesday night to offer you $150 to spend the next morning chugging gas station coffee before clandestinely salvaging some rusted metal from an overgrown property he may or may not actually own.

You wouldn’t know how far you were from Morgantown, Pittsburgh, or Zanesville because of the nature of the hills, hills everywhere, always obscuring the horizon, and the density of western Appalachian slopes’ deep green foilage drunk on late spring rain. I was the youngest person present, like a fragile goofy dainty pre-teen stowaway, barely tolerated on their Gruff-and-Serious Mission to tromp through the stagnating mud to reclaim bent rusted metal in the oppressive humidity. Pungent vernal pools. Too many toads and frogs to count. And in the flooded oxbows, and where the rain puddles collected in gravel, there were two turtles, and both of them were tiny little babies that could fit in the palm of your hand. One was a snapping turtle, the other a spiny softshell.

I almost saw this as a spiritual experience, because: (1) I actually lived far away, nowhere near this kind of humidity, where there were much fewer reptiles and amphibians, in a region at the extreme range limits of both of these turtles, where these turtles were rare. Acres and acres of degraded cattle rangeland or barley monoculture. Not very friendly to streams. There was also yucca-covered badlands, shortgrass prairie, sagebrush steppe. Friendlier to reptiles generally, but not generous in providing streams for the turtles. However, if circumstances aligned, and you paid attention to the humidity and the insects and the goings-on of the prairie, you might be lucky enough to sometimes see a snapping turtle or spiny softshell in little stock ponds and vernal pools in the “wide-open” prairie. They were like harbingers of ... something special, I guess.

And it was also a “spiritual” experience because (2) they were my two favorite North American turtles, at least at that time, partially because they both had interesting distribution ranges on the edge of their range, and I often went out looking but could rarely find them, so the auspiciousness of seeing both species together was cool.

And both turtles are so unique. The snapping turtle is like a dragon or dinosaur, full of personality and charisma. The serrated shell, the rough skin, the mass of muscle escaping bursting out and escaping the shell’s confines, the long dragon-like, almost-horned tail. And spiny softshells are almost alien. The dramatically long neck, the unique flat pancake shell, the leathery soft texture of the shell, they’re highly aquatic even for a turtle, etc. Softshells can sit at the bottom of a river, and extend their neck up to the water’s surface, so that they can breath, like a submarine’s periscope. And they’re very skittish, very fast when you encounter them and they retreat, just a blur, like an apparition.

So these, like, dudes in their twenties, seeing me watch the turtles, they all wanted to either (1) take the turtles home as “pets,” or (2) kill and eat them. (!!! But don’t worry, everything was fine, I eventually convinced them to save the turtles, to re-release at the river nearby.) But for a while, these people placed both turtles together, each in a pail with some water, the pails side by side.

You know how snapping turtles have a reputation for being fiery, grumpy, dangerous to handle?

This little snapping turtle was - to this day, still - the most passive and pleasant turtle I’ve ever encountered. Just completely calm and charming. I swear she was smiling. The dudes “babysitting” me were insisting on handling the snapping turtle to demonstrate their fearlessness or some other bullshit. I don’t like handling reptiles and amphibians unless its necessary for their own safety (remove them from the road or residential yard, transplant amphibians from a dangerously drying vernal pool, transplant a rattlesnake to somewhere it won’t be killed, etc.). But this time, to keep these dudes from harassing the snapping turtle, I was the one who would take it, and place it back into the wet pail after each of these guys had Proved Their Courage or whatever. This snapping turtle, not once did it appear agitated or aggressive. Nervous and uncomfortable with the harassment? Yes, but not a violent turtle.

But the softshell? Violent turtle. In the best way. The two turtles were polar opposites.

To this day, that was the angriest turtle I ever met. Hissing, clawing, wriggling, biting. I was 110% vibing with this softshell, because I shared its righteous fury. This turtle didn’t want to be harassed by these guys, treated like garbage. I myself was not enjoying being teased and harassed by these guys. They had spent their down-time that day fishing for and arbitrarily/sadistically killing carp and catfish to toss to the crows.

The softshell, the snapper, and I, all hostages.

To this day, I still love these two “alien” turtle species.

The turtles ended up being transplanted somewhere safer. So did I, when I returned “home.” The turtles lived. So did I, I guess.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

7. Colossal

While Joey is a fan of the phrase ‘Dream big.’ He doesn’t always like taking it literal. Thomas also isn’t a fan of the wolf toon’s size. Unfortunately for both of them, it seems that the Brute is very happy with his colossal figure, and doesn’t take kindly to Thomas’s attempt to jog his memory of his smaller size. (Set in the AU where Joey gets perfect toons from his freshly killed employees and STILL isn’t happy, the ungrateful bitch.)

Both Joey and the mechanic were ecstatic when they watched the machine properly work its magic for the first time, its hums and whirrs were like music to the pair’s ears, and that was fitting, given the machine’s most recent meal. It was almost as if the musician was going out with one last song to share with the audience.

Their smiles faltered when they saw the machine struggle and bulge, when it pushed and heavied, when it whined and whimpered, whatever it was producing was too big to fit through the nozzle!

Pounding and thudding within the machine grew louder and louder, the sweet melody of success had changed tempo and tune into a terrifying song of destruction and damnation. If this didn’t work, then everything they did to reach this point had been for nothing, all the sweat, blood, and tears? All the expenses taken? All the sleepless nights? All for not.

Oh yeah, and a man lost his life for nothing. (It wasn’t like Tom or Joey really cared about that guy and he was sick anyway, so it wouldn’t be THAT bad of a loss.)

The two men looked at eachother, wondering if they should turn off the Ink Machine and lose their toon, or keep it on and possibly lose their lives along with losing the machine that would do them in.

And then, a large hand came out of the nozzle and gripped its rim, followed by a second, equally large hand that gripped the opposite side of the rim. The hands stretched the nozzle apart as if it was made of rubber and the toon; an absolutely colossal beast of a wolf, squeezed himself out of the opening that was far too small for him.

The mechanic was relieved and absolutely over the moon as the wolf harmlessly popped himself out without even causing so much as a scratch to the machine! A truly impressive feat given his size! (Although, the mechanic swore he saw a glob of ink in the rim of the machine’s nozzle push in and out of there as if the machine itself was panting with exhaustion, and the way the machine itself still puffed inwards and outwards… it looked like it was breathing.)

The animator on the other hand, while relieved that the machine wasn’t destroyed, looked disappointed upon seeing the giant wolf come out when he expected a smaller one.

“He’s extremely off model.” Joey stated, taking out his cane and began whacking the beast with it for emphasis.

“Look at him! He’s far too big,” He whacked the wolf on the chest as he could not reach the beast’s head, even with the cane.  “His arms are too meaty,” A whack to the gloves. “He’s missing an eye,'' With a slip of the cane, Joey had managed to hit the beast’s chin this time. “His face is all wrong,” Another whack to the chest as Joey could not recreate the lucky strike. “His legs are too short-”

Before he could whack the wolf once more, the colossal beast gripped the animator and lifted him up like a child would a doll. The wolf growled loudly in Joey’s face, glaring at the now frightened animator in his grasp.

“Brute not like you very much, tiny cane-hitting meatbag.” The giant of a beast growled as the color drained from the animator’s face. “Brute let you keep cane, but make sure you too busy using it for self so you not hit Brute again.”

With that, the wolf grabbed Joey’s leg with his other hand and began to squeeze and pull at it. The animator screamed in agony as a series of sickening crunches echoed throughout the room. Thomas desperately searched for something, anything that he could use to either defend himself or free Joey with, but that seemed to be unnecessary as the Brute dropped Joey to the floor on his own accord.

The dazed animator whimpered in pain and scrambled to get away from the wolf, but the Brute took the discarded cane and pressed Joey’s pant leg down with it, dragging him back and keeping the terrified animator in place.

“You, little wrench boy,” the wolf pointed to Thomas with his free hand, the growl had faded out of his speaking tone and the man had noticed that the wolf was speaking with a foreign accent that sounded mostly Russian, but also had a dash of something he couldn’t pinpoint. “You Meatbag’s friend, right? Take Meatbag to hospital before he bleed out on floor. Brute will go figure out what is going on here.”

With that, the wolf let Joey go free and broke open the formerly tightly locked door with ease.

“H-hey! You need to stay put in this room!” Thomas shouted to the wolf’s back. “I’ll be happy to tell you all you need to know, but you can’t just wander around the studio-”

The Brute picked Thomas up by his collar and snorted in his face, the beast’s hot breath smelled not like ink like Thomas was expecting, but metallic and sickly sweet instead, almost smelling like human blood. The growl returned in the wolf’s voice.

“Did Brute stutter? Does Brute need to repeat self? Brute said: Take meatbag to hospital before he bleed out on floor. Or does Wrench Boy wish to join Meatbag in bleeding on floor? Brute would be happy to accommodate if that is case.”

Thomas gulped and shook his head, The Brute nodded and dropped him on the floor in response.

“Smart choice Wrench Boy.” The wolf nonchalantly dusted itself off. “Brute pray you make more smart choice for your sake.”

Thomas said nothing as he slung Joey over his arm and carried him to the infirmary.

------

The memory of that day resurfaced almost every time Thomas was left alone with the Brute. While the monster seemed to be in higher spirits when accompanied by the Cameraman, Miss Twisted, or both of them, that wolf would almost give him a knowing look when no one else was looking at them.

He shuddered knowing that the wolf had done to another human being with complete ease when calm and collected. And almost every day he prayed that the Brute did not inherit the worst aspects of his former self’s temper.

Tom even doubted that what he was doing right now was a smart idea, he shouldn’t be bringing any of the toons any mementos of their past lives at all, but bringing Sammy’s old scores and files down to the Brute, who had violent tendencies since day one, a rivalry with the mechanic in its past life, and the size and strength to pummel a speeding train into submission if it wanted to… No, he couldn’t back out now.

Gritting his teeth and preparing for the worst, the mechanic opened the door to the Brute’s room

“Hey Brutus, wake up! I got you something.”

The large wolf grumbled and turned over, most likely trying to get back to sleep.

“Brutus.” Tom repeated in a scolding tone. “Wake up!”

“Is middle of night, Wrench boy!” The grumpy wolf scolded back as he threw his pillow at the mechanic. “And Brute’s name is Brute! Not ‘Brutus’. If Brute wanted to be called something different, he would let Wrench boy and others know.”

“Listen: There’s something important that I need to tell you about how you came into the studio.”

“Brute already knows; Meatbag hire Wrench boy to build machine, Wrench boy do poor job at building machine, but machine work anyway and now Brute and rest of Brute’s companions are here.”

“But do you know HOW the machine brought you here?”

“Brute don’t want to know. If little Wrench boy wants to tell story, go tell someone who wants to know. Brute go back to sleep now.”

“Sammy, your name used to be Sammy Lawrence!”

The Brute sat back up, his tone and demeanor was as cold as ice. And the wolf blinked, his eye going from a pure black pie cut to something clearly animated, but slightly more human like; a pitch black pupil surrounded by a yellow glowing iris.

“...What did you say to Brute?”

“Your name is Sammy Lawrence, you used to be a musician!” The mechanic shoved the files in the wolf’s face. “You were-”

He was interrupted by the wolf grabbing him by the torso and hoisting him up in one hand and painfully twisting the arm that held the files.

“Brute not ask Wrench boy what he said for Wrench boy to repeat his blasphemy, Brute ask Wrench boy what he said so Wrench boy take time to think before he speak again.” The Brute growled lowly. “But Wrench Boy not think, so Brute remind him the hard way.”

Thomas held back a scream as he felt the Brute crush the bones in his forearm into dust, then proceed to tear the arm off with the ease of a human being ripping the legs off of an insect.

“Now leave to infirmary and never speak of this again, or try to continue to talk and lose other arm, and legs if stubborn.”

Thomas bit his tongue and nodded before running out of the wolf’s room as fast as he could, hearing the remark of the wolf coming after him.

“Smart choice, Wrench boy! Shame you didn’t make more when had the chance!”

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

Always (or Dani, the collector of souls falls in love and Miles keeps passing out during the entire story)

If you were, hypothetically, of course, to visit a place in England called Bly Manor, you would most likely meet an odd group of people. You would see two children, one an absolute angel, the other a teenage, snarky brat of a boy, who are probably being supervised by a stern, yet extremely capable looking woman. You would probably be shown around the house by the sweetest housekeeper in the world, probably be offered lemon cakes by a tall man who looks at the aforementioned housekeeper with all the stars in his eyes. And maybe, just maybe in the middle of it all, you might glance outside and see a woman standing by herself in the garden. At first you would think she’s just moving casually, maybe dancing on her own; and then you would see that her movement has a pattern. It almost seems as though.... no, it couldn’t be.  

“Is that woman,” you would ask, hesitantly, not wishing to offend these people and some potential strange ritual of theirs, “talking to herself?”

The housekeeper (Hannah, you think she’s called) glances outside and chuckles. “Oh, that,” she says. “That’s just Jamie. Jaime’s the gardener. She’s just talking to her girlfriend.”

You would resist the urge to rub at your eyes. “Her.... her girlfriend?”

“Well, technically Dani hasn’t asked her yet,” the cook cuts in, smiling. “But it’s on the way, I assure you.”

You would look from the strange, solitary woman, to their frank, open faces, and then back to the solitary woman again, and you would think.

You would think Why, these people are absolutely fucking bonkers.

*****

(They’re really not)

*****

The first time Jamie saw the woman, it was from across the grounds, which is why it took her crossing halfway the distance to realize that she was breakdancing.

Then again, she had also got other things on her mind. Peter Fucking Quint had to go and fall off the parapet while attempting to rob the Wingraves of their old jewelry the night before last, and between helping Hannah communicate with the police, ensuring Owen received an adequate number of head pats every hour to calm him down, and offering Rebecca a listening ear for both murderous rants and angry tears, she had her hands completely full. And that wasn’t even including the kids, although they seemed to be doing fairly alright. Thankfully they had not seen the body. However, that didn’t deter Miles, who was currently going through a bit of a Hannibal phase, from popping up at random intervals to ask her what broken bones looked like, or if the blood had frozen overnight.

All in all, pretty exhausting.

Which is why the sight of the children standing in front of a breakdancing woman didn’t register at first. She was pulling out the weeds, sun high in the sky, sweat tracing an uncomfortable path down her back when something made her look up. One double take, and she was scrambling in their direction.

She reached them, panting, raised her head after her breath was a little more even and looked right at the woman, who was currently doing the robot. “Um,” she started, unsure of where to go from there. “Are — are you quite alright?”

The woman stopped abruptly, her mouth falling open. “You can see me?”

Okay, this woman was clearly mental. “Yes?”

The woman looked even more astounded. “You really can?” she turned to Flora next. “You too?”

Flora blinked. “Yes, we can.”

“But that’s impossible! You shouldn’t be able to see me. In fact—”

“Jaime, darling,” Miles cut in the middle of what seemed to be the beginning of a rapidly delivered monologue. “Could you escort this.... clearly insane lady outside?”

Jaime thwack-ed the side of his head gently. “Wanna try that again? Nicely?”

He looked sheepish. Not really a bad kid, that one, she thought. Just annoying.

“But you really shouldn’t be able to see me. By all calculations, it’s completely—”

“Well, why not?” Miles asked, now having warmed to the idea of possibly talking to someone who was crazy.

The woman brightened up. “Well, because,” she said, “this, I guess.”

And then she snapped her fingers, disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the lake, where she waved at them excitedly.

Flora is the only one who waved back. Jamie was too busy supporting the weight of a now-collapsed Miles.

*****

Jamie thought it was patently unfair that the reaper of souls was just so damn cute.

(They weren’t supposed to be cute! They were supposed to look gaunt and hollow, and angry and sad, not like sunshine wrapped up in a very human looking package. They weren’t supposed to be walking around with bright, blue, gorgeous eyes, and faces that seemed to have been sculpted by some divine power up there, and a voice that was sweet and soothing enough to put Jamie right to sleep.)

“It’s amazing how all of you can see me,” the reaper of souls, or Dani, as she had introduced herself, said, looking wide-eyed at all of them. Rebecca and a recently awakened Miles were the only ones who looked actively concerned, standing in the corner. Owen and Hannah were, as ever, polite and pleasant, if a little curious. Flora was already settled in next to Dani, asking her questions a mile a minute. And Jamie was—

(Very fucking annoyed at how pretty Dani was)

—completely alright.

“And you’re here to get Peter?” Owen asked her, with a sideways look in Rebecca’s direction.

“Oh yes,” Dani replied. “And boy, was that man a pain. Really whiny. Went all Boohoo I can’t be dead, I’m supposed to do so many things, I’m so cool and awesome and. Ugh. Annoying is what he was. I mean, the list says Peter Quint — died while trying to steal from Bly Manor; what am I supposed to do?”

They all nodded, a little dazed.

“And then I saw the kids and I was bored and I thought they couldn’t see me anyways so,” she continued, and then looked down, suddenly a little shy. “I really am sorry about the.... you know, breakdancing. I honestly thought nobody could see me.”

“It’s okay, it was cute,” Jamie found herself saying before she had time to process, and then wanted to stab herself with the fork lying on the table. If that didn’t work, bang her head on the surface until she bled to death. Or—

“Thank you,” Dani said, equally as quiet.

Jamie closed her eyes, willed her body to fall dead right then and there.

(It didn't work, unfortunately)

“Would you like to stay for supper?” he heard Owen ask their guest.

“Supper?” Dani asked. “Wait, is it already that late?”

Jamie looked up a moment later, when she heard everybody scream and then she opened her eyes to see a stranger standing right near the stove.

“Viola!” Dani said, alarmed. “I thought I sent a message I was gonna be late.”

The woman looked very haughty, very angry and (this is something she hated to admit, again, but) very fucking hot. Seriously. What was with these underworld people and ridiculously angelic skin? Her gaze moved past all of them, came to rest on Dani.

“I got your message alright,” she announced, blithely. “Just couldn’t figure out why you were still here.��

Dani chuckled, nervously. “So, funny story, but as it turns out — these people can — uh, see us?”

Viola tilted her head, regarded her. “Are you sure?”

“Hello,” Hannah said, ever the gracious host. “Welcome to Bly Manor.”

Viola looked flabbergasted now, doing a double take to look at all of them more carefully.

“They can see us?”

Dani nodded, gingerly.

“Seriously?”

Another nod.

“But that can’t be—”

“—Viola, I know, but—”

“—it simply cannot be allowed—”

“—absolutely not I know what you’re thinki—”

“—We have to end them!”

There was another whoosh right next to Jamie’s ear, and she took her time, turning around, only to see another pissed-off, hot woman, standing in the kitchen, her arms crossed.

“I didn’t even say kill!” Viola protested.

“You implied it!”

Their standoff was interrupted by a violent, abrupt thud. It seemed Miles had fainted again.

*****

Jamie walked into the greenhouse, paused and smiled.

“You cannot surprise me,” she said, aloud.

There was movement behind her, and then Dani walked into view.

“How do you always know I’m here?”

Jamie stayed quiet. There wasn’t a good, less-embarrassing way to say The air dances when you’re around, or I can feel your presence in the back of my neck, in the way my heart starts skipping steps on whatever treadmill it is currently running on.  

“Let me keep my secrets,” she answered.

Dani stayed beside her, as she started on the rose plants, a safe distance away, safe enough for Jamie to not feel like she would combust. “I got you something.”

“You’ve already given me so many things,” Jamie told her, hand rubbing at the back of her neck. It was true. Every time Dani had dropped in the past month, she’d brought little trinkets from her travels all over the world.  

(Travels was an excellent way of describing the action of harvesting the grumpy souls of the dead)

One time there had been crepes from Paris, courtesy the tourist guide who passed of a heart attack in a café. Another time it was one of Cerberus’ treats, because Jamie was eternally curious as to what hell dogs actually ate. The bone had been framed and now lay on one of her shelves back at home. One day, she had gotten macarons that Owen had scarfed down before Dani could get around to telling him they were filled with the eternal cries of the dead.

(He’d spent the entire day walking around convinced he was going to die. The doctor said it was indigestion)

She opened the neatly wrapped box and picked up the pomegranate. Turned it around in her hand, examined it.

“Aren’t these supposed to tie me down to the Underworld forever?” she asked, only half-serious.

“Gosh, no,” Dani said, nervously chuckling. “These are not that kind.”

Jamie waited.

“Um, so these,” Dani went on, “these seeds are kind of multi-purpose things? So basically you can eat them, but these seeds, when planted, they can grow any plant in the world. Doesn’t matter what soil they’re on. I mean, I heard you mention that flower you’ve always wanted to grow, but England doesn’t have the climate suited to it and — well. This would work.”

If Jamie could speak, this is what she would have said: I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know why you’re here, why you give me so much of your precious time, time that you could be walking around the whole world in. I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m around me, how to breathe, how to look, and I’m an utter godforsaken mess, but I’m eternally grateful you barged into our lives a while ago. I don’t know what I was doing before you came. I hope you never leave.

She would have said I know you collect souls, but there’s at least one heart lying in that bag of yours, and there’s a good chance it’s mine.

As it is, all she did was grab onto Dani’s hand, and squeeze.

*****

“You have got to stop doing that!” Owen gasped, hand on his heart.

Dani shrugged from on where she was now perched on top of the table, sitting directly in front of an open-mouthed Miles. “Hannah always knows when I’m here.”

“That’s because I really do have eyes everywhere,” Hannah turned around, smiled brightly at Dani. “Spaghetti?”

“I’ve been asking you for the past five minutes!” Jamie said, indignantly.

“Well, now we know who’s her favorite,” Dani shoots an infuriatingly smug grin in her direction, and pats the top of her head and—

Jamie would feel annoyed if her heart wasn’t racing and there wasn’t a blush fighting to make its way up her cheeks. This love thing was annoying.

(Not that it was love, of course. Certainly not)

“As charming as that sounds, Hannah darling,” Dani continued, “I actually came for a purpose.”

“Is it to set murderers on us again?”

“No, Miles,” Dani replied, patiently. “Plus, Viola and Perdita wouldn’t really have.... killed you. Maimed you, at best.”

Rebecca shuddered delicately on the other side of the table.

“Remember when you said you’d had a bit of a dinosaur phase when you were a kid?” Dani directed this towards Jamie.

“... yes?”

“Well,” Dani snapped her fingers, and to their extreme horror, a parrot sized creature appeared next to her, “meet Battery!”

“—completely house trained,” she heard Dani explaining to Hannah, while she extended a hand towards (what was he called? Right) Battery. He opened his mouth, stepped closer, licked the entire length of her finger with a long, slimy tongue, and then immediately nipped at her nail.

(Jamie may or may not be helplessly charmed)

Before she could say anything, however, Miles fell from his chair onto the kitchen floor.

Rebecca sighed, got up from her chair. “You guys know there’s going to be permanent brain damage if he keeps doing that.”

*****

About three things went wrong the day Jamie decided she was finally going to tell Dani she was in love with her.

The first thing was that she needed to get drunk, and decided to trust Owen and Hannah to deliver. The second was that Battery wasn’t adequately educated in the intricacies of human weirdness and tended to panic at the first sign of strange behavior. Third, lakes weren’t the most romantic places to confess your love, but apparently nobody had told Jamie this.

So when she found herself flailing for breath after having somehow made her way to the middle of the lake in a makeshift lifeboat and then having upturned it in the process, she only had herself to blame.

“What,” Dani started, looking absolutely furious, hair all over the place as she held Jamie up, “the fuck were you doing in the middle of the lake?”

“Hey!” Jamie sang, because the alcohol was making her feel very sing-song-y, “You shouldn’t be here yet! It’s not time!”

“Battery panicked and summoned me,” Dani explained. “Are — are you drunk?”

“No, she’s not!” Hannah called out from where she and Owen had just reached the lake. “We gave her loads of strong bitter soda and convinced her it was watered down whiskey.”

(Now that she was thinking about it, the whiskey had seemed pretty fizzy for her liking)

“Oh,” she Jamie, now sobered up. “But I was drowning.”

“Yeah, in about five feet of water.”

Well, that was anticlimactic.

*****

At midnight, she sat by the lake, covered in a warm, fuzzy blanket Dani had draped all over her. Dani sat beside her, Battery on her lap, smiling at her from time to time.

“You’re such an idiot,” she said, out of nowhere, and Jamie didn’t have the heart to disagree. “What am I even going to do with you?”

“You could,” Jamie started, ponderously, like she hadn’t spent three months of her life thinking this over, like her heart wasn’t an over-excited ping-pong in her chest right now, “you could always take me out on a date, you know?”

“Really?” Dani murmured. “Well, that’s a novel idea.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Depends. Would you be okay dating someone who is almost constantly grumpy from carrying around beleaguered souls all day?”  

Jamie pretended to think. “I think so, yes.”

“Someone who regularly hangs out with a murder-friendly woman?”

“.... maybe?”

“How about someone who may have to keep going away for lengths of time?”

Jamie turned to her. “Would that someone come back to me, though?”

Dani’s eyes were shiny and hopeful, and she felt her breath get stuck in her throat like a lovesick little fool. “Always,” Dani whispered.

“Well, then,” Jamie whispered back to her, and then leaned in for the most picture-perfect happy ending of all time.