Meanwhile in the back of my head I am still trying to use all the postfurry toolset to deal with ALL THIS KITTY PARENTING STRESS

So... Peg and I were on a craft beer run last week and ran into the prettiest red merle Australian Shepherd mix, "Oyster." She flomp even better than Shemp and was extremely friendly, outgoing, and calm. I... I think I developed a mild Platonic crush on Oyster.

And I need an inner mama, someone a little more capable of quiet patience than Aunt Tigress. "I shall slay all who oppose you, tiny cousins" is a good attitude for some situations, but... doesn't really help when they miss the litterbox, yanno?

So here's Brill. She's still in her formative stages, but she's another merle Aussie Shepherd gal. I modeled her personality a little bit after Shreve from Daily Coyote. She's kind of a cross between Buffy and Applejack, a rural but modern Colorado lady who's also a bit softpunk.

She's from a light comedy-horror world, where the Horrible Supernatural Event has already more or less been dealt with, monsters are a manageable (and hotly political) public issue, and not everything spooky is evil or unrelenting.

Brill has dead friends she speaks to on a regular basis. She is a former Final Girl and does charity fundraisers online for other survivors. She is totally unflappable, unswerving in her compassion, but utterly ruthless when she's got an axe in her paws.

Helping raise two little displacer beasts will be NOTHING to Brill. (In fact, I think that's canon now. She breeds pet displacers.)

So yeah. I think another little part of me has gone canid. Laika is thrilled she has someone else around here worth sniffing instead of all these goddamn cats.