Jolie was actually a cat boy (girl?) And going to the cat boy underground meetings was family bonding time for her and Grady. Her choker is by her wanderling, next to her charm bracelet. Every time Sophie goes to the wanderling woods, Grady and Edaline hide it. This is the real secret Vertina was keeping for Jolie, and why Brant fell in love with her, for he is a murcat boy.
we can call her a catgirl! I've just been using catboy broadly because there's no one to stop me, but catgirls are also a thing
Jolie and Grady bonded over being catboys is not the take I expected to see in my inbox this morning but it is catboy weekend (may even extended further as I have more catboy asks!) so I think it's fitting. I mentioned that I thought Grady would be a pink catboy, but Jolie doesn't feel like that kind of person. I'm getting silver vibes from her, just real light (in color and personality). But I do think she'd indulge herself in the bows! hair bows and bows on her clothes and all the like--she was said to have a lot of cosmetics and things, so it feels fitting.
but back to the family of catboys. Is Edaline also a catgirl or did Jolie just happen to inherit the catperson gene from her father? Because as much as I'd love a catgirl Edaline, I think the idea of her just being an animal lover in a family of catpeople would be hilarious. When Jolie finally tells her that she's a catgirl, she just nods sagely because she's been through it all with Grady.
I wonder if they'd hang the choker from the branches of her wanderling like they did with the charm bracelet or if they'd actually put it on a branch. honestly the idea of a tree wearing a choker sounds fantastic. I wonder where they hide the choker when Sophie comes to visit...
Now I'm just imagining Grady going to her wanderling by himself in his catboy outfit and curling up at the base of her tree, just remembering all the underground meetings they went to together and how much they bonded over something so unique to them.
Also Jolie keeping that a secret instead of the brant thing...that does upset some of the most intrinsic and essential parts of the plot of keeper, but we can excuse that for catboy purposes. Either Vertina thought that the mysterious diary Jolie wrote wasn't as important as her catgirl status, or someone had to fabricate Jolie knowing that in order to divert Sophie's attention away from the mirror. Which, like I said, will tear several holes in the universe but it's okay.
Brant as a murcatboy...there's something poetic there about being a creature of the water that's drawn to the burn of the sun, the glory of destruction. I wonder what it would've been like for him to discover his power, as I'm assuming he'd become a murcatboy before that. There's likely something there about how cats don't like water and murcats love it, yet despite this difference Jolie and Brant were still drawn to each other and fought for their ability to be together.
The hatred Brant could've developed for his ability after killing Jolie...this gift given to him that set himself at war with himself, water vs fire in unholy matrimony. Chaos incarnate within him. And then Jolie dying as a result of it as the final straw...there's potential there, I must admit
something some in fair Verona where we lay our scene, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean, never was there a tale of more woe, except make it Jolie and Brant