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You are Charlotte Fawkins, dashing heroine, detectivess, adventuress, heiress, sorceress, etcetera. Three years ago, you drowned yourself in a quest to find a long-lost family heirloom; nowadays, you're just nobly c̶a̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g solving problems with the help of trusty retainer Gil and MIA maybe-father Richard. Inexplicably, many people tend to "dislike" you, though you've never done anything wrong in your life.
Right now, you have forced your sworn rival Pat to make Gil another body out of goo, since his old one got splatted and absorbed into the hivemind Us. Since you saved Pat's life, she's begrudgingly agreed. (Also, your nemesis Horse Face has somehow tagged along.)
"I don't think this'll work."
This is not news you wanted to hear. You drag your fingernail against the vinyl of Pat's manse's cheap settee. "What do you <span class="mu-i">mean,</span> won't work? It worked last time, didn't it? And it's your job to make it work, no matter what, given that I just, reminder, banished Management forever—"
"I know," Pat says tightly. Her back's to you— she's at a smooth-topped counter, poking around in the chunk of goo you salvaged.
"And, double reminder, you shot him in the head?" Horse Face, at the other end of the settee, has raised his eyebrows. "I'm not going to keep that a secret! You totally shot him in the head, for no reason, since all you had to do instead was mess around with Management's strings a little bit— it wasn't even hard, okay? Did you even think about doing that, or did you leap straight to 'oh well, guess I better shoot'— I mean, obviously you did leap straight to that. But come on!"
"I know. I don't want to hear it from you, Charlotte. Do you want Bug Man extracted or not?"
"You can't call him that," you say, and stretch your arms across the top of the settee. "That's my new rule, since I saved your life and everything. You can't call my retainer mean names."
"It's not mean." Pat stoops to see level with the chunk of goo. "It's factual."
"It's not even close to factual! He's multiple bugs. It should be Bugs Man. And it shouldn't even be that, because he wasn't even bugs when— have you even <span class="mu-i">seen</span> him bugs? Alive and bugs? Because—"
"Bugs? When that Type II unleashed the goons on us, he was about 20 million bugs."
This sounds... dimly familiar. Very, very dimly. You think you may have been some manner of demon queen at the time. "Oh. Well, there you go! 20 million bug's', plural, not 20 million 'bug,' so—"
"More to the point," Horse Face says pleasantly, "even if the sobriquet isn't outright offensive, it does scan as rather derogatory. Perhaps condescending? It's not something I'd attempt to take the high ground on, personally speaking."
Pat grunts in response.
(1/5)
