Welcome To The Back (Part 1)

he’s right

I feel like Bruce Wayne projects the kind of amiable playboy 'fun' vibe that he'd be the type of celebrity that certain interviewers feel comfortable surprising with puppies.

You know the kind of shows I mean.

The late-night talk show situations where they're making benign small talk with their smiling guest, and there's a segment where animals get brought out, usually to talk about some sort of ecological relief effort.

So you're watching your trash TV talk show late at night, and you get to watch billionaire pretty boy Bruce Wayne be begrudgingly talked into holding a (relatively) harmless creature which inevitably gets a lot of delighted shrieks from the audience as it starts being a lot more active than the handler promised. And to his credit, Bruce doesn't flinch, he doesn't freak out. But his eyes are a little wide, and his voice a little tight as the smile on his face takes on a slight rictus quality before he's inevitably rescued by an apologetic handler who is also laughing because they all know there was no real danger, it was just funny to put Bruce, who is an undeniable good sport and already laughing along, out of his comfort zone for the sake of charity.

Meanwhile, up in the Justice League headquarters, several founding members of the League are wondering how fast they can get a fake Oscar award shipped to the space station because fuck off. Absolutely fuck off, Bruce. Where the fuck did he study? Juilliard? (Probably.)

(Clark ends up going to a novelty store during the commercial break. It's faster than trying to get anything shipped, even with the infrastructure Bats built for them. He finds it several days later taped to his console in a conspicuously empty briefing room. It's gaudy and awful, the words "Best Actor" engraved on the plaque. No one's around to see him smile. No one comments when it vanishes. Everyone thinks it's been yeeted out an airlock. Dick absolutely comments when it shows up in the manor, stashed in one of the trophy cases that sprung up for all the bat kids' school awards. Bruce has no idea how it got there. Must have been Alfred. (It was not.))

Anyway, consider, for your amusement, Bruce Wayne getting highjacked on The Gotham Toight Show with a handful of wriggling puppies and, for a split second, not having to pretend he's delighted to be there.

shoutout to the earth kingdom girl zuko went on one date with. i truly believe she made the choice not to snitch on his firebending

AU where like 2 years after order 66, Rex comes back to the 501st and gets together all the clone troopers left in the battalion and they all just kidnap Vader and take off into deep space. Vader doesn’t kill them because some part of him is still very much emotionally attached to his men, since they’re pretty much the only personal relationship he has left from Before (no matter how much they might resent him, both for his antics during the war and for all the, you know, genocide now).

Rex and the guys spend a few moths beating some sense into Anakin’s thick skull. Once Rex manages to make him comprehend the sunk cost fallacy (look, just because you’ve done horrible things and become a monster and invested all your time and energy into destroying everything you ever loved doesn’t mean you can’t stop doing that at any time) and get him some goddamn medical treatment so he’s not in constant pain, the 501st returns to Coruscant. And for the second time, Anakin leads the 501st Legion in a march on the Jedi Temple, which is now the Imperial Palace. Anakin confronts Palpatine. While Anakin is busy monologuing dramatically and ol’ Skeevy Sheevy is rubbing his hands together and cackling and going “good, good, use your anger” Rex sneaks up behind him and shoots him in the back of the head.

At this point, Rex isn’t sure what to do next, because he honestly didn’t think he’d get this far. Anakin gets out Sheev’s datapad, makes some edits to the personnel database, and then promptly fucks off to the outer rim to do some soul searching (later, Rex will hear stories of some weirdo mouth-breather in black armor carving a merry swath of death through slaver trade routes). 

And that is the story of how Rex, at the ripe old age of fifteen, finds himself officially installed as the military dictator of the Galactic Empire. And it is somehow HIS job to restore democracy. Rex DOES NOT want this, but he can’t just leave, because then the best case scenario is the Galaxy reverting to the incredibly corrupt, oppressive, fake democracy it had been before, and he can’t let that happen. At the same time, if one more Senator bows and addresses him as “your Imperial Majesty” he might just jump out a fucking window

the only upsides:

-he now has the authority and power to arrange for a peaceful retirement for his brothers, with financial support

-the Kaminoans also have to address him as “your imperial majesty” and that will never get old

-he now officially outranks Cody

Stand-In Journalist

“You want me to do what?”

Marinette’s vaguely aware that her voice may have been a tad too loud, especially considering the fact that Alya had been attempting to whisper to her just moments ago. She’s also vaguely aware that’s she’s attracted the attention of most students currently walking up the school steps, including that of her crush, Adrien Agreste. Surprisingly, she finds herself unbothered. And more than a little distracted.

“Alya, you’re joking, right? You have to be.”

“Girl, shush,” Alya hisses out, wrapping an arm over Marinette’s shoulders and taking glances around them. It seems a little on the paranoid side, but Marinette isn’t one to judge.

“Listen, my grandma has to go into surgery, so me and my family have to take off for a week. I really, really, wish I could do this myself, but I’ve got no other choice right now. I know you’re busy with all your commissions, and the bakery, and class president stuff, but Nino sucks at talking professionally, and Adrien’s, like, never allowed out of the mansion.”

“What makes you think I’d be a better choice in comparison to literally every other student in our class?”

Alya rolls her eyes at all.

“Marinette, I’ve heard your customer service voice.”

“Ah.”

Right. Helping out her parents at the bakery meant an awful lot of occasions where she’d had to deploy the infamous customer service voice. After all, they do own one of the most popular bakeries in all of Paris, which meant attracting quite a lot of tourists.

Unlike America, the Dupain-Cheng bakery doesn’t take bullshit. She makes sure to let rude customers know that just from the tone of her voice.

If she tells you to leave, you leave. She only needs to say it once.

“Besides,” Alya continues on. “If you do this for me, you can consider all of your IOUs paid off.”

“Do what?”

The two girls look away from each other in surprise, now noticing they had the attention of their resident model. Despite teasingly calling out Marinette as an eavesdropper, everyone’s rather aware of his nosy tendencies. (Not many can blame him, though. He’s not socially incompetent, but boundaries are still not his strong point. Really, considering his only friend for years was Chloé, well… It’s understandable, to a point.)

“And what makes you think that’s your business, Agreste?” Alya smirks, placing a hand on her hip and using the other occupied one to pull Marinette closer.

She’s been doing that around Adrien a lot, testing some theory about Adrien and his touchy-feely habits. Marinette decided she didn’t want any part of that and didn’t ask any further.

“Well,” Adrien playfully smirks back. “I overheard―”

“Eavesdropped,” Alya loudly whispers into Marinette’s ear, who giggles in response.

“Overheard,” Adrien corrects, though he’s clearly smiling. “You pressuring poor Marinette into doing something that she doesn’t seem to want to do. So I was just curious, is all.”

He pauses, glancing back and forth between the two girls.

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Lila, would it?”

Alya bursts out into a short laugh, not realising the fond look Marinette shoots Adrien’s way or how his shoulders are tensed, maybe even worried.

“No way! This is way more important than that! Marinette’s just filling in for me for one of my, uh… Ladyblog duties.”

Adrien relaxes, then smiles almost knowingly.

“Ah, I see. Nino said you’re going out of town in two days, right?”

“Yup! But you’re not getting any more than that. Now shoo, we got a lot to talk about.”

“Wait, hey,” Marinette protests. “I didn’t agree yet!”

“So you’re not going to take the opportunity to pay off all your IOUs in one sitting?”

The designer snaps her mouth shut and stares off into space for a moment, brows knit together and cheeks puffed up in what seems to be intense consideration.

“… Okay, deal.”

“Yes! Let’s go, then! Bye, Adrien!”

And with that, Alya drags Marinette away before the poor girl realises who she was standing in front of, and accidentally makes a fool of herself as a result.

———————————————————————————————————–

Alya had given Marinette most of the material she would need to do the job. Not only that, but she had coached Marinette through lines and responses, and how to use her customer service voice and morph it into a similar but distinctly different interviewer voice.

With all that, you would think that Marinette would be prepared for what she was about to do. But the truth of the matter is that no, she was not prepared. In fact, she was the opposite of prepared. While, yes, the chairs and cameras were all set up, and everything looked neat and tidy, and she was wearing her best professional clothing— a ruffled pink top and grey pencil skirt— Marinette was…

Well, she was freaking out. She had never practiced with the blinding light fixtures or with a camera pointed directly at her face. She never practiced her lines with anyone other than Alya. She only learned how to turn the cameras on today, right when Nino had finished up putting the cameras in place and was about to go home before curfew. 

It was just the push of a simple button, so that shouldn’t be something to worry about, but the fact of the matter was that she hadn’t even considered she would be the one responsible for the cameras. Which left the question― What else was she responsible for, that she hadn’t even anticipated?

“Well, this is a surprise.”

Oh god, he’s already here.

Plastering on a forced smile, Marinette turns her attention to a silhouette crouching on a high window. The crescent moon is hovering just behind his head, and his eyes seem to glow in the darkness of the corner he was in. He’s clearly already putting on a show, and Marinette realises with some panic that she doesn’t have a camera lined up in that direction.

Was… Was she supposed to move it? No, no, what if she accidentally breaks it? No, she can’t move it. But what if Alya wants this footage?

“Hello, Chat Noir,” Marinette forces out, stopping herself from prematurely pressing the record button. She… She’s supposed to do something first before doing that, but she’s forgotten what.

The superhero jumps down from his perch and walks into the artificial lighting, smiling easily and swinging his lower body over the back of the velvety red armchair, sinking into the seat cushions. 

“I was under the assumption that our favourite ladyblogger would be conducting the interview.”

“She had a family emergency, so I’ll be taking her place this time.”

His smile twitches down a bit, then completely fades away. His gaze grows more intense.

“… I see.”

An awkward silence stretches between them, and Marinette feels her face gradually heat up in embarrassment. Her mind is completely blank. 

“Marinette, are you alright?”

It takes her more than a couple seconds to process that question, and when she does, her embarrassment increases tenfold.

“I’m fine, sorry about that. Just got lost in thought. Anyways, are you prepared for the interview?”

Apparently, her response displeases him, because he stands up and walks around the table between them, stopping just beside her. His eyes never leave her face.

“… Marinette, I think you’re either having an anxiety attack right now, or you’re dissociating.”

“Am I,” is her automatic response. He doesn’t say anything, only frowning as though he was given a rather unfortunate answer. He reaches for his baton and opens it up, kneeling down beside her legs. He takes several minutes to check something up, reads through it, then puts the baton away.

“Okay, definitely dissociating,” he mumbles to himself. He stands up again then goes over to the equipment, and Marinette doesn’t do anything to stop him from messing with it. 

Abruptly, the lights shut off. 

“Marinette, you okay? Do you hear me?”

His voice is soft in the darkness, which is comforting, but it’s still distressing that she can’t see. Yes, the lights were horrible, but now the only thing in her vision is the imprint of a bright, blueish hue, fixed in place no matter how many times she blinks or where she looks.

“Marinette?”

His voice is closer, now, but even softer, just shy of a whisper. She hums in response, then blinks a few more times. One of the light fixtures is moved out of the way, allowing for moonlight to splash over the table and chair in front of her. Her shoulders untense, just a little. There’s still spots in her vision, but she can see now, so it doesn’t matter.

“Do you want me to keep talking?”

Yes, yes, she would very much like that. Her body is beginning to feel a little shaky, but she manages to give the voice a sharp nod. The voice? Who was she talking to again? She couldn’t—

“You know, I lied when I said I was surprised,” the voice says, interrupting her spiralling thoughts. “I knew that Alya was gonna be out of town, I had overheard about it. I also know you’re her best friend, so I kind of expected to see you. I was really excited about it.”

A figure moves in front of her, briefly, before once again getting comfortable in the plush red seat. His lips move in time with the voice.

“I really enjoy talking with you. It’s really easy to trust you with things I wouldn’t tell others, because you’re very respectful and kind. I’m honestly amazed that you never told Alya about that whole balcony thing, the day Glaciator attacked. I didn’t even have to tell you not to say anything, you just naturally understand boundaries like that.”

Chat Noir smiles in a way that’s nothing like all the previous smiles she’s ever seen on his face.

Right. Chat Noir. She’s talking to Chat Noir, because she was supposed to be filling in for Alya, who is out of town, for an exclusive one-on-one interview with Chat Noir. And she…

And she already messed up.

“Oh, God,” she says with sudden realisation. She quickly raises both hands to squish them against the front of her face, covering up her burning cheeks. “Oh, God, I can’t believe that just happened.”

“Hey, it’s alright—”

“No, it’s not alright, because I promised Alya I would get this done, and that it would be perfect, but I totally messed up everything because I couldn’t keep my stupid feelings in check, again, and Alya had worked so hard and deserves—”

“Marinette, stop.”

She flinches back, and sees Chat Noir now seated down on the table, his knees just barely bumping into hers on either side. He leans forward and takes hold of both her hands, placing them on her lap.

“You need to stop thinking about what Alya will think or how she would do this. You’re not Alya. You may be the stand-in journalist, but that doesn’t mean to have to do everything by her rules.”

“But, no, this is Alya’s interview, she—”

“She’s not here right now. You are. Listen Marinette, you can’t do this by pretending to be some imitation of Alya. If you want an authentic, smooth-going interview, you’ll need to go about this your own way. Everything you learned from Alya is going to be your base template. A resource for you to borrow from. You with me so far?”

Marinette presses her lips together and nods. Chat smiles and cups her cheeks, using his thumbs to brush away tears she hadn’t even known she’d shed.

“Good. Now then, tell me how Marinette Dupain-Cheng would interview a superhero.”

———————————————————————————————————–

The light fixtures were back in place, now at a much lower level than they were previously. The table had been moved out of the way, allowing for the chairs to be close enough that either one of them could stick their leg out to kick the other, easily. The cameras were rearranged to film at different angles, now, and no camera view excluded either of the two out of the shot.

Most importantly, Marinette had ditched the file Alya had provided her. She already knew the questions by heart, anyways, in case she needed to use one of them.

“You ready to begin?”

It’s funny, really, that the interviewee was asking that, and not the interviewer. 

“Yeah,” Marinette responds. “Let’s get this show started.”

And with that, the cameras start rolling. Marinette grins at camera A, placed to have a perfect side-view recording of both parties from a distance.

“Bonjour, Paris! I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and while I’ve literally never done an interview in my life, Alya Césaire decided that I would be the purrfect replacement in her absence. So, really, you should blame her for this.”

Chat snorts loudly at that.

“Continuing on, today we’ll be asking our favourite feline superhero, Puss in Boots, a few questions. Say hello, kitty!”

“Oh, God,” Chat says in-between a short bout of laughter. “Bonjour, Paris. Just so you know, I did nothing to deserve this blatant mistreatment.”

“Hush,” Marinette says, giving him a light kick in the shin. “I punned for you. I get a pass.”

“What? No way, you can’t get passes for animal cruelty.”

“Oh, you’re an animal now? Way to start this interview off strong for your lady fans, Chat Noir. Please, do go on.”

The interview goes by smoothly. There’s never a lull in conversation, boundaries remain untouched, and the atmosphere remains playful, warm, personal, and overall enjoyable.

But, it isn’t the end.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Marinette?”

She sighs, picking up the file she had previously discarded, squinting due to the bright lights. 

“I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy doing things my way, but I did promise Alya that I’d do it the way she planned it. So, we might as well film this version as well, right? She can decide for herself which one she likes better. Besides, I…”

She smiles.

“I feel a lot better now. I think I can do this.”

“Alright then,” Chat concedes. “Let’s take it from the top, then.”

———————————————————————————————————–

Alya has watched both videos at least ten times each, and she has to admit, the superior one is rather clear. As much as she doesn’t like it, Marinette was clearly more in her element in the first one filmed, which went on to further charge the chemistry between her and Chat.

And boy, was there chemistry. 

That leads to the next problem. If she posts the first video, Paris would practically erupt, a new brand of shippers will jump into the scene, and Hawkmoth may very well place a target on her best friend’s back.

If she posts the second video, her followers would find the interviewer rather lackluster, and possibly make a lot of rude comments that she doesn’t want her best friend to be subjected to.

… Really, the answer to her dilemma would be pretty obvious. Marinette can handle a few internet jerks. It’s no big deal, and, most importantly, it won’t get her targeted by Hawkmoth. 

But the thing is… Marinette and Chat Noir want her to post the first video. They wouldn’t have filmed it and given it to her if they hadn’t wanted it to go public.

The ladyblogger leans back into her desk chair and sighs, glancing towards the bedside digital clock while biting down on her thumb. 1:53. She really needs to make a decision, otherwise she’ll never be able to actually go to bed.

Her sleep deprived mind suddenly gets an idea. She latches on to it, posting both videos with different captions, then collapses into her bed with a sigh of relief. She’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow.

———————————————————————————————————–

Chat Noir is a little shit and he’s going to pay. 

She feels fooled. Bamboozled. A few nights ago, he had been gentle and kind, had given her good advice, and encouraged her to do her best without sacrificing the way she is. That Chat Noir was an inspiration. A friend and an ally. Someone she trusts and could count on. 

The Chat Noir of today made her realise that, yes, while he can be all those things, he’s still a little storm of trouble, mischief, and utter bullshit. 

And she was not prepared for this. 

It’s only been a day since the interviews have been posted, but almost immediately after they had gone public, Chat Noir decided to post a link to it on his social media and make comments.

Ones specifically made to rile up every shipper, analyst, and hero fan in Paris.

If she gets stopped one more time by some creepy adult fan who thinks it’s perfectly okay to grab a little teenager by the wrist, she’s going to kick their fucking ass. 

She eyes the expensive fabric scissors with an expression that screams murder. She wonders if it could tear through a magical catsuit. Probably not. Besides, she’d have to pay for it if she gets blood on it, and she only brought enough money to get herself some fabric.

Ugh.

She feels her hands twitch as her phone dings with another update on Chat Noir’s twitter. Begrudgingly, she shoves her hand into her purse and fishes it out, wondering what he could possibly be saying now. Seriously, how has he not exhausted himself yet? Wasn’t he awake at, like, 2 in the morning?

Marinette is not a toy. Quit grabbing her and asking her questions on the street. She’s a person. I SEE you, lady in the blue cardigan at the fabric store. She’s 13. Back. Off.

Quickly, she whips her head around to look over her shoulder, catching sight of a middle-aged woman in a navy blue cardigan. The woman is looking down at her phone, silently walking away in embarrassment.

Her phone dings thrice again.

Hey Paris, remember when I DIDN’T need to play bodyguard because you guys were respectful towards teenaged girls who were lucky enough to interact with superheroes? Let’s go back to that.

Seriously, I only noticed like 30 minutes ago when I saw some university guy corner her on the street. What the hell’s going on? @ladyblogger Was this a normal occurrence and me and Ladybug just didn’t know?

I admit I was joking around and maybe fueling some ship wars but I didn’t expect grown adults to take that as a sign to harass a young girl. Knock it off and wake up, real life isn’t the internet. 

…

Well, Marinette decides. She supposes the cat will live to see another day.

Ding!

To the TV crew hanging out at the entrance of the fabric store: Filming and interrogating a 13 year old without parental consent is illegal. I WILL apprehend you. Leave.

A minute later, Marinette hears about a dozen curses from multiple people at the front of the store, and the rushed packing of equipment.

With a smirk, Marinette sends out a tweet of her own.

Wassup, Paris, thanks for landing me my very own furry stalker, @therealchatnoir. Much appreciated. Always wanted one of those.

Ding!

?!?!?!? FURRY?!?! EXCUSE ME?!?!

Marinette cackles and pockets her phone, ignoring the resulting dings.

DON’T PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY ON ME, HEY!!! HEYYYY!!!!

I’M NOT A FURRY TAKE YOUR PHONE OUT YOU COWARD

dcvgthgrfCFRVGTBHYGVRFCDEX F I G H T M E

I’LL SPAM YOU DON’T THINK I WON’T DO IT. HEY LADYBLOGGER GIVE ME HER NUMBER I JUST WANNA TALK

Marineeeeetttteeeeee don’t ignore me pleeaaaaseeee ;(((((

He’s a dork. He’s sweet and kind, but ultimately he’s a total dork. 

And maybe a little her type.

…

She buys black fabric, that day.

———————————————————————————————————–

“Please? Pleaaase?”

“No, Alya.”

“Oh come on, just one with Ladybug!”

“I can’t, Alya. I’m busy that day. Ask Adrien to do it or something.”

“… You know what? I will. He’s free Wednesday morning, right?”

*SPOILERS FOR THE TOTK DRAGON QUEST*

I drew this as an excuse to draw Zelda in her new dress and then that never happened. ALSO THANK YOU @katydoodles FOR DOING THE BACKGROUNDS <3

how to block a work from your search results on AO3

Every work that gets posted on the Archive has a unique identifying number. That number appears in the url for the work. I’m going to use one of my own works as an example. This is the url for my multi-chaptered fic describing tags and tagging:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584613/chapters/62091004

The number that I’ve bolded in the middle, the one that comes right after works/ is the ID number for that work. We’re going to use that number to create (or edit) a site skin that will block that work ID from appearing in search results. 

Step 1: open the work that you want to avoid and grab that number. 

Step 2: either go to https://archiveofourown.org/skins and tap on the Create Site Skin. Give your new skin a name and description so that you’ll know what it is later. 

Step 3: this is the CSS code that you’ll want to use:

.blurb#work_25584613 { display: none;}

Note that the number I’m using there is the number from my example work. You’ll want to enter the number of whatever work it is that you’re trying to block. 

Repeat step three for as many works as you want to block. 

Step 4: save the skin and then hit the Use button to use it  on the site. 

If you’re already using a skin, you can add this code to the end. So for example, if you’re using Reversi in order to have dark mode, you can copy the Reversi CSS code into your new skin and add this line of code to the end of it, and you’ll have dark mode with the work blocked at the same time. 

Step 5: enjoy your AO3 experience that much more! Because this is a site skin, you can set it once and never think of it again (unless you change skins or log out)

I’ve seen discussions sometimes about how fanfiction-based fandom culture is heavily influenced and dominated by people who are not cis men.

One thing I haven’t seen discussed as much though is how much of fandom in general is shaped by neurodivergent people.

I mean, you have autistic and ADHD people with special interests or hyperfixations collecting information and writing detailed meta, connecting very strongly with characters and fandoms. I would not be surprised if the percentage of autistics in fandom communities was significantly higher than in the general public.

And that’s not even getting into other types of neurodivergencies and how they influence fandom culture.

I sometimes see people try to divorce fandom culture from the idea of being a “geek”, and I understand that this is sometimes because of the association with the sexist geek stereotype, but I also know that there is a connection between the two concepts, and it’s probably us neurodivergent people.

"Your Highness" or; Zelda's bedroom ideas

Sometimes Zelda wants to ravish her knight and other times she wants her knight to ravish her😳

He's eager to please...most of the time. It'd be funny if Link has a too much of a thin face (?) for Zelda's prince x maid rp idea

Anyway thank you for looking, I'll go yeet myself back to drawing pure stuff now

Can I request for The Shoulder Spirit AU for the 5HC?

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it

So someone else is actually going to write this (@scribeprotra), but here we go. I’m stealing most of these from the original chat, tbf, but a few are new or modified:

1. Wooster’s shoulder spirits embody “Do it for England” and “DO IT FOR THE VINE.” They are, respectively, Albia and Trelawney Thorpe (specifically Thorpe’s YOLO Spark Id). It’s a bit of a headache to deal with.

2. Krosp doesn’t have shoulder spirits but he can see them, so that’s fun. (Other option is that he gets Agatha and Dr. Dim. Up in the air, really.)

3. Shoulder spirits are often good vs evil, but they happen to take other dichotomies as well, like Wooster’s responsibility/loyalty vs. recklessness/hedonism.

4. Klaus has his brothers as his shoulder spirits. However, given the nature of his brain, his brothers also have shoulder spirits, which Klaus can see, if not very clearly. this This is also a headache to deal with.

5. Lucrezia had the classic good/evil dynamic. Her experiments may or may not have resulted in the good spirit disappearing.

6. Tarvek’s pair is Othar and Anevka. This is an extreme headache to deal with.

7. Tarvek is, ironically, the shoulder angel for half his family. This is very irritating for all of them to deal with. Seffie in particular has Tarvek and Martellus, and they’re constantly arguing but the one thing they agree on is that she should get with Colette. It’s awkward for Anevka, who has her brother as her shoulder angel and her mother as her shoulder devil.

8. Gil gets Bang and Wooster, well before he’s met either one. (Bang is the shoulder devil for a lot of people). It’s why Gil trusts Wooster despite him being a spy once they meet in Paris. Bang can’t get Gil to really do anything evil so she settles for convincing him to do as much Madboy Chaos as possible.

9. Martellus gets pre-zombie and post-zombie Andronicus.

10. Jagers generally get other jagers as a Common Sense and Utter Dumbass pairing. Given that there are only about seven or eight jagers in the entire army that are actually willing and capable of giving common sense advice (the generals, Dimo, Jenka, maybe Jorgi), this is very much a “sharing the braincell” meme situation.

11. Theo gets his Momma Serpentina and Auntie Demonica. The only thing they agree on is Seduce Sleipnir, Dammit.

12. Each muse gets two of her sisters. The ones who got Tinka are all Very Worried.

13. Zeetha is also one of those people who just. Gets her parents. It’s one of the reasons she’s pretty keen on meeting the baron. She saw a propaganda poster and that’s a dreadfully familiar face.

14. Bang’s shoulder angel is Gil. She gets lots of practice ignoring him before they ever meet.Gil, to Bang: You! You’re my shoulder devil!Bang, to Gil: You! You’re my shoulder angel!Klaus: Great, you’re going to be working together forever now.

15. Jim has Aldin as his shoulder spirit of Common Sense. Aldin has Jim as his shoulder spirit of Pure Dumbass. You know. Jager style.

16. Saturnus had Teodora as his shoulder angel. It was why he sought her out

17. Agatha gets her dad and the Castle. She doesn’t actually see them until the locket comes off, and she cries when she does because Bill tells her he’s proud of her and it’s Very Overwhelming.

18. At least one person’s spirits are primarily Depression vs. Executive Function

19. Lars has Abner and the cheesemaker he was apprenticed to. Abner’s role is basically “follow your dreams!” The cheesemaker is the “play it safe.”

20. There are sparky machines made to test for the presence of shoulder spirits, mostly as a sentience test for constructs.

21. Shoulder Bill’s favorite of Agatha’s suitors is Lars, by the way. The fact that Lars is not a spark and not any mad scientist’s beautiful son is also a factor.

22. Being someone’s shoulder spirit is considered functionally equivalent to a soulmate. Usually platonic, occasionally romantic, but always important.