"Marcille hates all of Laios' freak traits but loves them in Falin" is honestly a really good joke but... you guys do know it's a joke right?
It's such a funny one I honestly find it impossible to get mad at even when people mistake it for an actual truth about the characters but JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR
THIS is how marcille reacts when Falin is predictably just as enthusiastic about eating monsters as her brother was.
That is not the face of a woman who thinks this trait is lovely and endearing as long as it's exhibited by the girl she loves. That is the face of a woman who is taking 7d8 psychic damage and yet knows deep in her heart she won't like Falin any less for it.
The way young Marcille reacts to Falin eating berries Marcille can't recognize but Falin knows are safe is pretty similar to how she reacts to eating monsters years later, albeit with more fear than disgust. The difference in her relationships with Laios and Falin isn't just that she's attracted to Falin, it's because the Touden siblings, while similar, are in fact different people. Not just genderswaps of each other.
Also, I think you all already know this, but just to say it: she doesn't actually hate Laios for any of his freak tendencies either. He's one of her best friends. She's just a lot quicker to be outwardly exasperated with him while she's quieter about it with Falin.
So like...Sam's Liminal. Definitely Liminal.
She's also very pretty.
Constantine's a little tipsy, but he's very, very sure he just accidentally sat next to a Fae at the bar.
Heavily influenced by certain lines in Inferno, buttttt
Sam's a very pretty young woman. Beautiful smile (with too sharp teeth), lovely eyes (but they're a little too wide, a little too bright), fantastic skin (unnaturally pale, suspiciously cold), and a very pretty face (perfectly symmetrical)-first glance anyone who leans towards women would get instant butterflies in the stomach.
But Constantine's been around danger enough to recognize those aren't butterflies.
That's fear.
There's a deep, instinctual fear that is telling him he has to run.
Just as he's about to leave, though, her hand rests itself on his arm.
"Leaving so soon, Hellblazer? And here I thought you'd want to take a look at this...interesting contract I found."
Ah. Shit.
He sits back down, next to the Unseelie Fae who, apparently, owns part of his soul.
Sam, for her part, just wants to scare the idiot straight so he'll stop making work for Danny. (Danny's days are almost nothing but fielding complaints about Constantine and he's so fucking close to hunting the man down himself).
Two people with the exact same brand of ADHD and shared intense hyperfixation clicked too hard, 100 dead, thousands injured, 3 million new timelines unlocked, a single starting line of conversation ending in 400 new novel length messages sent and one month between reply times
we get a lot of really great stuff in system collapse about murderbot's relationships with ART and ratthi, which makes sense, because it spends almost the entire book with them. but i also love how even though mensah isn't there for most of the story, other people keep reminding mb of her:
chapter 2, page 25: “From ART’s personnel file, she [Karime] was older than Mensah and she didn’t look like an intrepid space explorer, either, even in the protective environmental suit.”
2, 27: “It took Karime three seconds to process the abrupt statement. (She was almost as good at not looking annoyed as Mensah was.) She kept her expression neutral and patient.”
2, 28: “In the underground colony room, Karime lifted her brows. ‘Another occupied site?’ I thought she was being careful not to show too much reaction. It was the way Mensah would have played it.”
4, 70: “Iris looked at me and I saw her hesitate, because her hesitation looked a lot like Dr. Mensah’s hesitation. And I realized I really didn’t want to go down there.”
5, 104: "Iris has that same thing as Dr. Mensah, the thing where she’s able to look and sound calm under circumstances where shit is possibly about to go down.”
it's spent so much time with her and it knows her so well and respects her so much that she's the model against which it compares all other humans. it thinks about her when they're not together. it's protective of her. it has such total faith in her competence. it (non-romantically) loves her and doesn't want to not see her again. idk man, it just gets to me! and they were teammates (oh my god they were teammates!!)
bonus:
I said, aloud, "You have to be kidding me." (ch. 2, p. 28)
seven pages later, in reaction to the same thing:
Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, "Oh, you have to be kidding me."
Yeah.
Dazai the kind of person to find Chuuya beautiful even when he's covered entirely in blood and scars, or when wrinkly and old, but still say he's as ugly as ever with a big fat lovesick lopsided smile.
Chuuya the kind of person to hear his bullshit, understand the hidden meaning, smile exasperatedly because this bastard can't be honest for the life of him, then say that Dazai doesn't look bad himself.
Then Dazai grows redder than a tomato, and continues spouting insults at Chuuya, who just enjoys his wine.