Open Post: Welters

[sorrowandsorrow]

It's probably been noted before, but Janet's not actually dumb. The people of this mansion are varied and mercurial. They're not like Fillorians, some of whom are little bitches but who were largely cow-eyed and willing to accept her authority just because she was a pretty girl from another world.

So. She has to win people over. Maybe everyone needs a little fun to take their minds off things. Conveniently, welters is absolutely Janet's idea of fun. There's a bunch of insane rules, violence is encouraged, and you win if you're good at magic and being bossy.

The mansion grounds are also a little tempestuous as to their character, but apparently the master magician toying with all their lives is feeling charitable today. She's found a big, flat stretch of undisturbed grass, and she's sketching out welters squares with a piece of chalk.

Comments

[peaklordshen]

"Sounds like you had a better experience than that guy, too," says Shen Qingqiu. He waves his fan, interested. "What kind of monster?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"An asshole of a monster," Janet says. She immediately gets a little pissed off just thinking about the Beast. "You know in the later Fillory books when Martin stops getting invited to Fillory?¹ He got back in anyway. Umber found him, and, like... I don't know. Trained him up. Corrupted him.

"He ate part of Quentin," she finishes, for a bit of drama.

¹Yeah, it doesn't occur to her that Shen Qingqiu may not be familiar. It would be like not having any familiarity with Narnia. Also, last time she mentioned them, he didn't specifically say he hadn't heard of them.

[peaklordshen]

"Wait," says Shen Qingqiu, disappointed. "So just like. A human guy, doing cannibalism? I haven't read the books you're from, you gotta give me more than that."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Oh, fuck off! Janet doesn't really like talking about the Beast, but she also hates losing at anything.

"No, he bit part of him. Like, unhinged his jaw on the spot, and chomped." The memory does make her a little nauseated sometimes. Penny had bled so much, too. You're not really supposed to get both of your hands bitten off. It looked like a crime scene, like something you'd see on CSI but worse, because of the way it smelled.

[peaklordshen]

"Yeah," says Shen Qingqiu, "that's what I said, cannibalism." He isn't entirely without sympathy, but he'd been hoping for like, a monster monster. "In Proud Immortal Demon Way there are spiders that imitate babies crying to lure you into the woods, and then when you come close enough they stick their razor-sharp legs into your brain and pop your head right off your body, and then they carry your head around using your mouth and tongue to cry more and attract other victims."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet sighs. Why is this guy so annoying about everything? Sorry Martin Chatwin in a suit with razor-sharp teeth wasn't scary enough for you, fucker. If you'd been there and heard him casually threatening them all in his stupid English accent, you'd get it.

"That's fucked up," she informs him. "This book of yours sounds horrible."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu hesitates. He should enthusiastically agree—and he does agree. Proud Immortal Demon Way is trash of the highest order, so riddled with plotholes and gratuitous sex scenes and world-ending gore that the actual coherent story could probably only fill a single sheet of printer paper. But—he feels a weird surge of defensiveness at this rude woman calling it horrible anyway. Zhangmen-shixiong is in there, and Ning Yingying, and Liu Mingyan, and Qi Qingqi with her terrible, vicious bets, and an unexpectedly cute Liu Qingge, and most importantly—

Well. The most important thing there is also here, and he's still navigating that.

"Yeah," he says, finally. "It sucks. Anyway, are you gonna teach me to play?"