#good ol’ homegrown memes

[secretly-a-catamount]

Waysa: What am I supposed to do?

Rowena: If I were you? I’d try and make peace with whatever deity, pantheon, or Divine Other you believe in.

Waysa: I’m an atheist.

Rowena: Then just get ready to die I guess.

———————————

Rowena: And then they ran into my knife. They ran into my knife ten times.

Waysa: You mean you stabbed them?

Rowena: They ran into my knife.

———————

Rowena: No thanks.

Rowena: I'm god.

—————-

Rowena: When I was young, I left a trail of broken hearts like a rockstar. I'm not proud of it.

Waysa: You're kind of proud of it. You work it into a lot of conversations.

——————————-

Rowena: I wonder who’s ruining my life.

Rowena: *looks in the mirror*

Rowena: So we meet again.

——————————

Waysa: I made this friendship bracelet for you.

Rowena: You know, I’m not really a jewelry person.

Waysa: You don’t have to wear it . . .

Rowena: No, I’m gonna wear it forever. Back off.

————————-

Waysa: My hands are cold.

Rowena: Here, let me hold them.

Rowena and Waysa: *Holds hands*

Waysa: My lips are cold too.

Rowena: *Covers Waysa's mouth with her other hand*

——————————

Waysa: Do you have any skeletons in your closet?

Rowena: Literally or figuratively?

Waysa: I have to specify?

———————————-

Waysa: Wanna hear some dark humor?

Rowena: Yeah, I love dark humor.

Waysa: Alright.

Waysa: *Turns off the lights*

Waysa: Knock knock.

Rowena: Turn the damn lights back on.

——————————-

Waysa: I fell—

Rowena: From heaven? 

Waysa: No, I literally fell—

Rowena: In love with me the moment you saw me?

Waysa: MY ARM IS BROKEN!

Rowena: Okay, but do you think I'm pretty? Be honest.

———————

Waysa: Okay, but if your not dating me then why are you always holding my hand and kissing me and telling me I’m your boyfriend?

Rowena: Dude — its satire!

Waysa: THAT'S NOT WHAT SATIRE MEANS, ROWENA!

———————

Rowena: I love you.

Waysa, not paying attention: What was that?

Rowena: I said I’m selling you to the zoo, cat.

————————

Waysa, trying to flirt: I’d kill for you.

Rowena, not looking up from her book: I have killed for you.

Waysa, trying to flirt again: I’d hide bodies for you.

Rowena: I have hidden bodies for you, Waysa, and I’d do it again.

Waysa: . . .

Rowena: . . .

Waysa, giving up: You’re beautiful.

Rowena: I know.

————————

Rowena: You know, my father always treated me like a god.

Waysa: How?

Rowena: He ignored my existence unless he needed something.

—————————-

Rowena: I want to kiss you.

Waysa, not paying attention: What?

Rowena: I said if you die, I wont miss you.

——————————

Waysa: You’re a horrible person!

Rowena: Maybe. But I’m rich and I’m pretty, so it doesn’t really matter.

———————————

Rowena: Valentine’s day is just a consumerist holiday that holds no real value other than drive people insane buying heart shaped chocolates for their significant others and pos—

Waysa: I wrote you a poem.

Rowena, already crying: You did?

———————

Waysa, staring lovingly at Rowena: I would die for you.

Rowena, doing her own thing: Then perish.

[blackjack-15]

The Puzzle is Just the Italian Language — Thoughts on: The Phantom of Venice (VEN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. Like with all of the Odd Games, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I go into what makes this game stand out as a little strange.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: VEN, RAN.

The Intro:

From the French-inspired streets of New Orleans, Nancy jumps on a plane to Venice and is caught up in international espionage, theft, a mafia ring, and a cast of hostile suspects living in the same house as her.

Sounds a bit like my first semester of college, honestly. Minus the whole “Venice” and “international espionage” parts.

Coming directly after CRY, VEN isn’t quite as thick with atmosphere, doesn’t have any of its philosophy or thematic elements, and is really only famous for being set in Italy and for the fact that they hired four voice actors for our main cast sans regular characters (Colin, voiced by our good ol’ boy Jonah Von Spreecken, counts as a returning VA), but hired 6 distinct VAs for the singing gondoliers, most of whom the average player will never hear.

Yeah, VEN is kind of that type of game.

There’s a lot that makes VEN the trippy experience that it is – more on that immediately below – but nearly none of that makes VEN as confused as it is. Nancy’s hired by a foreign government – sort of – but there’s also a love line – sort of – a roommate story – sort of – and some touristy stuff like overpaying for flowers and gelato.

Taking place overseas, VEN might have been mistaken for a Jetsetting game if it weren’t for the fact that every bit of the game is permeated with the sense that nothing was quite thought out, nothing quite flows together, and there’s no emotional response in anyone – including the player.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing enjoyable about VEN; it’s one of the most highly memed games, in fact, with a catsuit, horrific fashion choices, and little laser roombas all making up the most memorable meme material (and that’s not even touching discount Justin Timberlake and his slides of seduction). It has strongly-painted characters (even if there’s a touch of the caricature about them), the return of recurring characters, the first appearance of a semi-recurring character, poisoned chocolates…it’s almost like someone tried to do STFD, but with a sprinkling of spies and Italy thrown in for good measure.

VEN can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a grind a lot of the time; the required puzzles can be ridiculous, for example, and, in a twist for Nancy Drew games, there’s a puzzle for everyone to hate, no matter if you dislike stealth games, card games, speed-reaction games, or even language puzzles.

Which brings us to the biggest problem with The Phantom of Venice: the common puzzle thread, the thing that keeps recurring, the ‘mission statement puzzle’…it’s just the Italian language. The game hinges on the idea that the player won’t know any Italian (or any Romance language, honestly), and that’s where the majority of the difficulty in the game (barring bad hand-eye coordination) comes from. It’s not a good thing at all, and it brings the entire game down with it.

Well, it has a little help. Let’s talk about the Roomba in the museum, shall we?

The Weird Stuff:

There’s a lot of things that are weird about VEN, no getting around it. But there’s one solid thing that makes it…well, Odd in the way that the other Odd games are qualified, and that’s this one simple fact:

This is a Hardy Boys mystery, with Nancy clumsily inserted in instead of Frank and Joe.

Think about it; called in by a foreign government, espionage, nearly drowning, contacts in the government and police force, an Italian crime ring…these are all things straight out of a Hardy Boys novel, not a Nancy Drew novel. There is a Nancy Drew book titled The Phantom of Venice, true enough, but this game doesn’t bear any resemblance to it besides, well, Venice itself. You could swap out Nancy with the boys and the whole game could go on, minus the whole ‘keepsake necklace from Ned’ thing, and depending on what you ship, even that might fly under the radar.

And no, I didn’t forget the dancing in a catsuit thing. Pure comedy right there.

Nancy’s a homegrown detective; most of her cases are ‘small thing spirals into bigger thing’. It’s not that she doesn’t deal in espionage, at times in foreign places, or stumble upon a crime ring. It’s just that that’s not the type of thing Nancy’s called in for, it’s the type of thing she trips over halfway into a lower-stakes mystery.

The Hardy Boys, however, because of their father’s contacts (in the novels) and their position in ATAC (in the games) are exactly the kind of people that work with police chiefs and security experts and foreign spies and the like. It’s very nearly their bread and butter. Which is why I have a wild but not out-of-the-way wacky sorta-serious theory. Bear with me:

This game was designed as a Hardy Boys game, and Nancy really was clumsily inserted in with a few weeks to spare.

At this point in history – the far-behind time of July 2008, as the Great Recession was descending, the fury of an election year was coming to a head, and you couldn’t go to a supermarket or clothes store in America without hearing OneRepublic tell you that it was just a little too late to apologize – HER wasn’t doing badly, per se, but they certainly weren’t doing as well as they could have been. They weren’t that far from having had to majorly upgrade their engine for a rapidly changing technological world, and there seemed to be no end in sight. HER had plenty of staff change-ups coming because of new sponsors, but weren’t making enough simply with what they had.

Put simply, they needed a carrot. And what better carrot than the fan-favorite Hardy Boys?

There are two Hardy Boys games put out around this time: The Perfect Crime and The Hidden Theft. While neither one was done by Her Interactive, there was a HER Hardy Boys game in the works: the DS masterpiece Treasure on the Tracks. The audience for a Hardy Boys game was meant to be young boys/teenaged boys, but the side audience expected was fans of the Nancy Drew books and games.

So while I know logically that Phantom of Venice was just the latest in a  line of ‘adulted-up’ Nancy Drew books (and games), in my head it makes much more sense to say that it was supposed to be a Hardy Boys game meant to promote Treasure on the Tracks and HER got nervous and pulled the plug, stuffing their erstwhile teen detective in instead.

The Title:

As far as a title goes, The Phantom of Venice isn’t a bad one; you can tell it comes from the ‘hotter and sexier’ Nancy Drew books, and as a collection of words, it works rather well. It’s an evocative title, giving us our location, our crime (‘phantom thieves’ are common as a type of thief), and doesn’t say too much else, so as to not spoil the mystery.

As a title for this game, however…well, so little of the actual game deals with the Phantom that it’s rather non-indicative as a title. By the time you’re 16 Scopa games deep and are wearing a sparkly red dress with a cat mask and sneakers around Italy, you’ve pretty much forgotten about the Phantom and are more worried about exactly what happened to the pigeon you used as a messenger and why exactly flowers and gelato cost so much for 2008.

The Phantom of Venice just…deserved a better, more cohesive, more…well, phantom-y game than it got. That’s all.

Now, onto the mystery!

The Mystery:

Nancy’s been called in by the Secret Italian Police because a thief has been stealing art.

No, really, I’m being serious.

Sure, Prudence Rutherford has a hand in getting her called in, but basically Nancy goes from small-time cases, sometimes getting her name in the papers, to called in by the Italian Secret Police.

Caught up at a house where no one likes her (understandable, given that she just Appears one day, forced on the Ca’s owner, Margherita Fauborg, and her residents at the Ca’), Nancy soon becomes embroiled in a mystery most foul when she discovers ties to the art thief – or thieves – right around the Ca’, poisoned sausages and message-laden chocolate boxes, and shades and shades and shades of tiles offered by the Ca’s resident nerd.

Soon, Nancy is juggling police contacts, heists, Scopa games, and the impersonation of a world-class spy just to give the Italian police a hint as to who might be stealing Venice’s greatest artworks. It gets personal, however, when the Phantom Thief himself shows up, stealing Nancy’s locket which she’s just been given by Ned.

Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is told in media res? Yeah, very, very weird choice right there.

Honestly speaking, the mystery isn’t…bad, per se. It’s got solid bones – art theft, mysterious thieves, romantic location, interesting-seeming suspects, some spy shenanigans. The problem with VEN’s mystery, largely, is that there just isn’t any cartilage to connect those good bones. Without something to hold it all together, it just kind of falls apart – exactly like a skeleton without cartilage.

Simply put, there’s a lot of mystery, but no plot to carry the mystery along.

The Suspects:

Beginning with Margherita Fauborg, the tanning-obsessed matriarch of the Ca’ Nacosta, seems like a good place to start. Dismissive of Nancy, tourists, and Nancy being a ‘tourist’, Margherita prefers to stay on top of her house tanning the day away rather than take part in any shenanigans.

Having Margherita not be a member of the ring was almost as inspired as having Helena lead it; she’s not nice, does suspicious things, is entirely self-centered – but she’s not a villain, nor does the game really pretend that she is for more than a second. I really like characters like this in the Nancy Drew games, who are honestly just People not enamored with the teen detective, but aren’t villains just because of that.

Also, the story of her husband’s death is just incredibly hilarious.

Her half-ward, half-employee Colin Baxter, on the other hand, is anything but dismissive of Nancy. He’s part of the ‘kinda crushing on Nancy’ club, but is Far less beloved than any other member of that club. It comes from his inherent creepiness, criminal record, and love for tile slides, I think.

Colin, as a suspect…well, he’s just there to make the numbers add up. It’s a shame that his largest utility is to show Margherita’s slightly unscrupulous nature, but he should have been kept as perhaps a figure that Nancy could call to get the story, rather than an in-person suspect.

The other person staying at the Ca’ is Helena Berg, fulfilling the HER mandate for having a German villain in their European games. Having Helena be the mastermind of the ring is a pretty good plot point, honestly, as I expected the first time for her to just be part of it, and to have that be the Big Surprise.

She’s also one of the few villains who promises revenge on Nancy and/or is still out there. I know it would have been Way too soon to have Helena be the returning culprit in RAN rather than Dwayne, but honestly she was a better candidate for it. While any hope of a good ND game (and mostly any game, honestly) is pretty far from me, I always hoped one day Helena would return in all her platinum blonde glory.

Enrico Tazza is our most encountered (kind of) and outwardly suspicious suspect, but he’s not exactly…well, scary. He makes Nancy-as-Samantha play a card game with him, then disappears, despite being the Preeminent Villain Face for the first half of the game.

I do love Tazza, however, just for his presence in the game. He’s cartoony, fun, well-acted…he’s just great. And as a potential villain, he’s great too! You’re never meant to doubt that he’s a ‘baddie’, you’re just meant to go along for the ride. Excellent.

Finally, Antonio Fango is the most prominent suspect that you’ll ever completely forget the name of, due to his lack of screen time despite being the Italian Police’s favorite suspect. He has a whole convoluted backstory involving multiple colleges and degrees, but really he’s just the communication go-fer for Helena’s theft ring.

As a villain…well, Fango does his part, but due to being a nigh-unseen suspect, he’s really just not very memorable. He’s like most of the ring – necessary to establish the numbers, but other than that, a non-entity.

The Favorite:

Despite the plot holes wide enough to steer a gondola through, there are a few things that really make VEN stand out.

The first is Samantha Quick; originally a stage name suggestion from Simone in FIN, she shows up as an actual character in VEN, albeit only by phone and shadow. Her pissed-off phone call to Nancy is a highlight of the game, especially as she ends with the vaguely threatening line “say hi to Ned for me”. Her shadow at the end in Colin’s window is the final clinch to make SQ a personal favorite of mine, and her presence (and the feeling of her presence, which is sort of different) is a high point in the game.

The location of the game is another plus; not so much Venice, but the Ca’ Nacosta itself. It’s a wonderful ‘home base’ location for any Nancy Drew game, filled with light, staircases, and pretty impressive stonework given that just a few short games ago, everything looked like it was animated out of melted gummy bears.

My favorite puzzle(s) are the chess puzzles, honestly. I just kind of like chess puzzles to begin with, and it’s a nice respite from forcing pigeons to do your bidding and avoiding various foods.

My favorite moment in the game is honestly the Samantha Quick shadow, but if I had to pick another moment, it’s where Nancy implies that she’s stripping for money, and Ned just replies that he’ll be really glad when she’s back home safe in the States. It’s such a random, hilarious thing to happen, and Ned’s complete underreaction to the idea of Nancy earning money in such a way (as she makes it sound way worse than it actually is) is what really sells it.

The Un-Favorite:

There are some un-favorites as well, however, that drag down the game to the place it currently resides.

The first is…well, the location and the means used to get Nancy there. As much as I have no problem with Venice, this attempt to open up the world makes little sense when you consider that there’s no way the Italian Secret Police would hinge their hopes on a small-time 18 year old American detective, no matter how highly Prudence spoke of her.

The jumbled plot (when there is a plot, at least) is another point against VEN; the writers just didn’t know what to do with Nancy being in Venice, and so just…didn’t do anything with it.

I also dislike that this game happens in media res. There’s no real reason to do it – and it makes any actions that the player takes that’s slightly apart from the ‘main plot’ – gondola rides, ice cream, looking at slide after slide after slide – seem incredibly out of place and borderline inappropriate. At the very least, if the Hardy Boys were part of the game, they could be yelling her name as she began to drown, which would give a sense of urgency that’s missing from the confused opening.

My least favorite puzzle…well, that brings me to a huge problem: every puzzle in this game is based around the fact that it’s in Italian, and they expect no one playing this to even have an idea of Italian (or any romance language). It boils down to this: the puzzle is just the Italian language, and they have nothing else up their sleeves. I don’t have a least favorite puzzle, because apart from a select few, they’re all the same puzzle, wrapped in slightly different clothing.

The Fix:

So how would I fix The Phantom of Venice?

Coming off of CRY, we’ve now had two games with two (or three) player characters, so that’s what I’d start with doing. Include the Hardy Boys, who have been called on by the Italian Secret Police because of their work with ATAC. They’re helping the mystified police track down this ring of thieves when Nancy mentions offhand that Prudence Rutherford is recommending a stay at a Ca’ in Venice whose owner owes her a favor (as a treat/vacation). Upon hearing this, the Hardy Boys ring her up and ask her help, as they’ve stalled out. They’re not allowed to come into physical contact with Nancy (to save money on animating them/Nancy), but they want her to investigate from her end, as she won’t be suspected at all.

The real reason the Italian Police let the Hardy Boys get her involved, of course, is that they need someone to impersonate Samantha Quick, and they’re having a rough time with their Joe-in-a-wig tests. They need an American who can convincingly pull off the act, and the brothers mention Nancy’s stints undercover. Desperate enough to grasp at anything, Nancy’s officially in.

That along would help beef up the plot, as suddenly we have an actual police plotline with the Hardy Boys (playing as one or the other, it doesn’t matter, or maybe both with different ‘jobs’ to do as one or the other). Diving the suspects is a good idea too; Nancy would take Helena and Tazza as her primary suspects (of course, only Tazza would be the ‘primary’ at the beginning), while the Hardy Boys handled Fango and his side of the ring.

The final puzzle (with the flashlights and such), especially, makes more sense as a Hardy Boys sort of thing. Nancy can snoop around the market and the Ca’, discovering clues as to Helena’s guilt and such. The Hardy Boys take down the ring, but Nancy takes down Helena.

I would also give Nancy a better reason to be undercover at the dance club. It’s a weird little minigame to be sure, but if it’s gonna exist in the game, there should be a better reason. Even better, take it out and have her solve puzzles – something other than the Italian Language, mind you – in order to get money from the police or something.

(Even better, take out the money thing, as someone helping the Police and pretending to be a spy should not be or appear to be short on funds.)

The last big change I’d do is to take Ned out (sorry, Ned, but there’s really no reason for you to be in this game) and swap him for Carson. Carson really should be in a few more games than he is as it stands, and this is a great way to bring in the fact that…well, Carson can’t be entirely Comfortable with the direction that Nancy’s life is going, even if he is proud of her.

Most of the time, Nancy’s family and friends are just used to say “and she’s ‘normal’ and loved and supported even though she’s never home”, and I think using them to establish her character and the stakes is a far better use of these pre-existing characters.

[rk800ruslapping-blog]

New blog!

Hello babes! This is a new lgbtq+ friendly Detroit: Become Human writing/fanblog~

To make things easier to manage, I remade my dbh sideblog into a main blog here. It took me a while, but it’s finally set up and ready for the public! I will most likely write gender neutral unless otherwise stated (or if it’s a self-indulgent fic)

A forewarning: I’m hella gay so I’ll have a preference for lgbtq+ related requests and prompts but I’d still write for anyone ❤️

Since I’m still settling in, requests are CLOSED for now.

What I do:

~Fanfiction: char x reader/oc, char x char, and nonship

      -Drabbles and one shots

      -Long fics

      -Character studies

      -etc.

~Moodboards/aesthetics, maybe some:

       -Lockscreen edits

       -Icon edits

~Some good ol’ homegrown memes

~Possibly more in the future

[viridiansunlight]

oc asks: 3, 31, 36, 39, 49, 50

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else? 

None that I can remember. All my nerds are homegrown.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)

Bran’s tumblr blog would be finely crafted, monochrome (with dark background and white letters) except for the occassional splashes of color. It would definetely give off a goth vibe, and he’d reblog dark and occult shit + bones and urban decay sort of stuff. Occassionally, he’d reblog sth scientific. People fear him because he is often quick to drag someone for behavior he finds unacceptable, though he doesn’t do vagueblogging.

He also has a massively popular sideblog where he posts pics of wolf puppies.

36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? 

Hoo boy, do I. Hashim + Mars, Lyre + Hvaki, Auroch + Tobi, Durik + Harv (although Harv is older than Durik’s concet by ages), Carlos + Daniel…. Lots. I actually prefer shipping / broshiping with different people’s characters than with my own.

39. Introduce any character you want

Gregor, the purveyor of Smoke and Mirrors.

AKA: You won’t believe that this creepy piece of shit is actually morally sound. He’s just a Darkling, they’re creepy by nature.

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes 

Erik and Ferrum for different but ultimately similar reasons.

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want 

That’s not a question for 1 am. It’s too open ended and I already talked a fuckload.

[secretly-a-catamount]

Rowenas If I fall . . .?

Waysa: I’ll be there to catch you.

Serafina: *looks at Braeden* What if I fall?

Braeden: Then I’ll fall with you, never leaving your side.

Jess: *watches these two interactions*

Jess, to Essie: And if I fall . . .?

Essie: I’ll be the one who pushed you.

—————————————-

Serafina: Braeden is too tall for me to kiss them on the lips. What should I do?

Jess: Punch them in the stomach. Then, when he doubles over in pain, kiss him.

Rowena: Tackle him.

Essie: Dump him.

Waysa: Kick him in the shin!

Braeden: No to all of those! Just ask me to lean down!

—————————————

*The Squad's reaction to being told they're the chosen one*

Serafina: I will not let you down.

Braeden, mustering enthusiasm: Sounds fun.

Waysa: No, I'm not.

Jess: Please god, I am so tired.

Essie: Do I have to be?

Rowena: I’m the villain.

———————————————

*The Squad when asked about their earlier confession of love*

Jess: Yeah, you're lucky. I like you.

Essie: I'd understand if you didn't feel the same way . . .

Braeden: *has a panic attack* What confession?

Serafina: *winks* I know, babe. You like me too.

Waysa: So what? Are you going to date me or not?

Rowena: It was a dare.

——————————

Jess: Stressed.

Waysa: Depressed.

Rowena: Possessed.

Essie: Obsessed.

Braeden: Impressed.

Serafina: Chicken breast.

Everyone: ...What?

Serafina: I just wanted to join in.

————————————-

Jess: If you put 'violently' in front of anything to describe your action, it becomes funnier.

Jess: Violently practices.

Rowena: Violently studies.

Waysa: Violently sleeps.

Waysa: Violently shoots pictures.

Essie: Violently boxes.

Serafina: Violently murders people.

Braeden: Violently worries about the previous statement.

——————————-

*after the Squad has been separated for a few years*

Waysa: So what have you been up to recently? Braeden: Leading a revolution with Serafina.

Waysa: Good for you two! Me, I've joined the mob.

Braeden: *nods* Oh, how cool! That's awesome!

Waysa: I know! Anyway, have you heard from the others? Rowena?

Braeden: Happily living as a hermit in the woods. Essie?

Waysa: Wrongfully locked up in an asylum, which reminds me, we need to break them out later. Jess?

Braeden: Cult leader.

Waysa: Yeah, that sounds about right.

——————————-

Jess: Imagine if someone handed you a box full of all the things you lost throughout your life.

Serafina: It would be nice to have my sense of purpose back . . .

Braeden: Oh wow, my childhood innocence! Thank you for finding this.

Waysa: My will to live! I haven't seen this in years.

Essie: I knew I lost that potential somewhere.

Rowena: Mental stability, my old friend!

Jess: Goodness, could you guys lighten up a little?

——————————-

Serafina, to the Squad: I’d die for you.

Jess: Then perish.

Rowena: You will.

Waysa: Please don’t.

Essie: Cool.

Braeden: I’d die for you first, Serafina.

[secretly-a-catamount]

[secretly-a-catamount]

[secretly-a-catamount]

Alec: It’s the gift that keeps giving!  Will: It’s the flower that keeps blooming!  Jem: It’s the boat that keeps sailing!  Annabel: It’s the serial killer that keeps stabbing!

[secretly-a-catamount]

(For @lescahiersdesable)

Malcolm: If you want my advice— Catarina: No offense but you’re the last person I want relationship advice from. You tried to kill Annabel. Multiple times. Malcolm: First off, that was when we were broken up. Secondly, she’s also tried to kill me. Magnus: It’s true. It was mutually attempted murder.

[secretly-a-catamount]

(for @lescahiersdesable)

Jem: If you water water, it grows.

Will: …What.

Alec: He’s got a point.

Annabel: Kind of like the opposite of when you murder a murderer, the number of murders stays the same.

Will: . . . What?

Alec: She’s got a point, too. Although, now that I think about it, if you murder a murderer the number of over-all murders increases while the number of living murders decreases.

Will: . . . What?

Alec: Will, you keep saying that, are you having trouble hearing or something?

Annabel: Of course he is, what else do you think all that empty space inside his head is good for? It makes the sounds smaller.

Will: Yea— Hey! That not even how sound sleep work!

Annabel: “Sound sleep”, William?

Will: Yes, Annabel, “sound sleep”—

Jem: What my husband means is that didn’t get much sleep last night because Tess started teaching the kids how to safety summon demons, and it — well, got out of hand.

Annabel: Moving onward, about what you were saying earlier, Alec, I didn’t think about that.

Jem: Well then, adding on to that, too, what is something that gives you less of it if you give it itself?

Alec: Time?

Will: Footsteps? I’m not sure.

Annabel: Chickens.

Alec: . . . Why?

Annabel: Cannibalism.

Will: Chickens eat each other?

Annabel: Oh, yeah, absolutely, all the time.

Jem: How do you know that?

Annabel: Malcom and I have started raising chickens; they’re supposed to be relaxing, help us with our trauma.

Alec: And does that work?

Annabel: Who knows.

Will: If the chickens eat each other, what else do they eat?

Annabel: Literally anything. Even human corpses.

Jem: And why do you know that specifically?

Annabel: I’m not you, Jem, I don’t like everyone.

Jem: I don’t like everyone.

Alec: Name one person you dislike.

Jem: Miss Dearborn.

Will: Fair. I don’t like her either.

Alec: I hate her.

Annabel: An example of someone who has gone to the chickens.

Alce: And just for the record, guys, I set the bar too low for Jem.

Will: You really did.

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Lady Rowena Fox-Pemberton Explained in Tweets

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