Today's voting incentive is a big version of the house panel because...I spent a lot of time drawing a creepy house and it's still hard to see, so why not! Heeey, look who finally lost control a bit. She's got some emotions. (Also her hair is gradually coming loose, because even a braid bun can't hold up to that much cross-country exercise.) Well, the summary of this page is: Malaya has a short existential crisis and then makes a decision. If you thought this chapter was just going to be "we figure out where Vincent is and then rush in and beat up some werewolves", you are very mistaken! When I first came up with the idea for this part of the story, I thought yeah, let's go with the old kidnapping trope! That happens in basically every show after some point, and it would really help generally...fuck things up, I guess. But I think a lot of times, stealing a person becomes a very blasé thing in many stories. Kidnapping happens so often that most TV shows might resolve the issue in all of ten minutes and then things are back to status quo. I'm gonna make everything a bit more complicated, because kidnapping is kind of a big deal, and being kidnapped is pretty traumatizing. Also, it's not so easy to get a guy back from five werewolves being protected by a very powerful witch, even if our peeps haven't really figured out the witch part so much yet. (Though they know this is where the spell is coming from, ergo witch/warlock, but we don't know who the fuck Connie is yet...and I have a way of getting to that point and I'm very proud of it. I'm very proud of myself always, but still.) So yeah, we're all gonna go through some things. My original plan for this story was "if werewolves are just normal people who turn hairy occasionally, then dealing with actual supernatural drama is probably kind of out of their league." Malaya is the extreme, since she's got almost no knowledge beyond what she's figured out on her own, but everyone else lives generally normal, uncomplicated lives. Marin's a lawyer, Marisa is a nurse, Charlene is a generally unattached 20-something, etc. So, someone she cares about getting kidnapped is going to have a pretty big effect on Malaya, just like it would effect anyone, I would think. (Unless you hated the person who got kidnapped, in which case...you'd be kind of conflicted, I'm guessing.) Anyway, look forward to many feels. Then, I don't know, werewolf fights or whatever. This chapter's gonna fucking have it all! Because it was gonna be two chapters! But that didn't work out right! YEAH! Anyway, in life news, I yelled at a guy at midnight last night! I don't normally yell much, so I would consider this a life event. But yeah, some dude was arguing with his girlfriend in her car (his car? he seemed upset that she was driving it) across from my house last night, and since that's right near my bedroom, it made falling asleep kind of hard. Then I thought they stopped, then they started up again. So, I flipped on my porch lights, which are LED and brighter than the sun, and yelled that I would call the police if they didn't shut up and leave. And it worked! He even apologized as he started walking away, which I responded to with, "Okay, leave." Apparently, midnight makes me surly. I'm not as pissed for me as I am for the fact that they were arguing right in front of two houses with little kids in them, and it was a school night, so those kids need sleep. Don't yell and be loud in front of an 8-year-old's bedroom, geez. As he was walking away, I realized that this loud guy was one of the relatives of my next door neighbor cross the street on the side of my house, who has lived there longer than I've been alive. Somewhere along the line, her entire family has just kind of...crashed with her? She's old but spry as hell, but all these randos in her family, grandkids and nieces and nephews, are just indefinitely living with her and they're all at least in their twenties. Plus she has to care for her mentally ill sister and brother in law. I'm kind of pissed on her behalf, though I don't think she minds. Also, I kind of like to know who lives near me, or at least how many damn people are in a house, and I can never tell because they treat her house like a clown car. So, that's my life. Being an adult is weird. Having neighbors is weird. Having a house and yelling at people is weird. I always thought being an adult was supposed to feel more important than it does, but then it mostly just feels like I'm still the person I was as a kid, but now I have better clothes and I have to pay bills and shit. No homework, though, so bonus! Adults are just kids who got old. I don't think any of us really have a clue what we're doing, honestly. That's kind of comforting but also terrifying, because I knew a lot of really stupid kids when I was one.