I wasn’t sure if I was gonna post this because I just farted through it. It was for rp anyway and Thema already knows what’s going on.
ANYWAY, Gale smashed a Cat’s Eye in front of Jacky before he knew better. It wasn’t Peter’s. It belonged to a WWII vet. All he had to go on was the miserable time he spent trying to keep that man alive while a ghost cat haunted him.
The wink doesn’t have a name. I’ve just been calling it Little Omen.
Jacky wants help finding Peter but ‘dad’ just killed one of his cousins in front of her and didn’t even blink about it. SHE AIN’T ASKIN’ HIM.
So she stole his staff instead. https://www.deviantart.com/greekceltic/art/Where-are-you-going-666846797
Gale has no idea what’s going on, but it won’t be long before he figures it out.
I have a lot of asks in my inbox about why Jacky doesn’t shapeshift during the time the Cats Way story takes place. I’ve talked about it but I haven’t really talked about it because I didn’t want to answer prematurely.
Patrick Penny: Jacky’s social worker.
Claudia: Her adopted mother.
Peter: Her Winking Cat.
Shydog/Thump: The nickname given to Jacky’s other form.
My summary’s a bit clunky and may change, but here we go.
Claudia adopted Jacky when she was a baby. SURPRISE, baby had a tail. They adjusted and things were good for a little while. She was home-schooled and made friends with the neighbor boy, Stacy. They lost a lot of hot wheels together.
MYSTERIOUSLY (not really) around seven years old Jacky started acting out and disappearing for long spells. Her ‘grandpa’ had recently died, so they assumed that was the cause. At that time Gale was still just a shadow on the wall (she saw very little of him growing up). He introduced Claudia to a magic kids social worker, Patrick Penny.
Patrick came and went as needed, but never found out that she had been disappearing to see Peter Wink- who suffered it as well as any other cat left alone with a child.
Life got pretty real for her in her late teens. Claudia died suddenly of an aneurysm and Jacky’s shapeshifting began in earnest. More than likely Claudia never met Shydog. After her death, Jacky moved in with Stacy and his moms but had an irregular presence there. She didn’t grieve. Jacky coped by staying as busy as possible. Some of it was constructive, aaaand a lot of it wasn’t. She was brawling as Shydog and making bad decisions.
It was up and down for a couple of years. She got a job. Moved out. For a little while, she was doing okay.
Then Peter said some ominous things and disappeared. That was bad. Peter had been her confidant. She spiraled again and nobody really understood why.
Patrick and Gale tried- but she’d seen Gale destroy a Cat’s Eye before and was pretty horrified at the idea of telling him she had one. At one point she took Gale’s staff to try to find her cat. That did not fly.
It all came to a head when Patrick tried to intervene. Jacky had not been dealing with her problems well. She was nineteen and had been handed a big green TANK with teeth. Her feelings were big, and her outlet was big, too.
Patrick picked a bad time to push. An argument started. She bit him. It wasn’t a love bite. It was a pretty terrible one, and it hadn’t been an accident. She’d done it because she was angry and she had to live with that.
She never had a chance to deal with the bite fall out (and wouldn’t have wanted to anyway) because shortly there after she tripped into the Cat’s Way while looking for Peter.
Having lashed out at Patrick and alienated just about everyone she knew, she stopped shapeshifting; Those feelings festered into a pretty formidable anxiety about not dealing with her problems by lashing out with her teeth. She doesn’t like thinking about Shydog because she doesn’t like what it says about her and who she is, among other things.
I haven’t thought much about Bali Wink, but as I was sketching Hark Wink I think I decided she’s a little bit of a fanatic and as such, doesn’t care for his heretic way of doing things.
Before Jacky went to the Cat's Way, she spent days following Peter Wink.
He would lead her around the city or out into the wilderness behind Gale's house. He would take her to places no one else remembered. There were close calls, and several occasions when she came home injured and dodgy, but she was nevertheless eager to go, because she could keep up, and because she knew she was getting better.
The game would end when Peter inevitably crossed an obstacle that she couldn't. There would always be a dead end. Peter would go his way, and she would resign to going home, because she couldn't follow.
Until one day it became clear that was no dead end. He would allow her to follow him as far as she dared.
I KINDA figured out what to do about how Jacky gets to the Cat's Way,
I liked the idea of Jacky having to have a near-death experience before she can enter the Cat's Way, because it puts her on the same level as the inhabitants. They have ALL experienced death, because they're all spirits.
But I DON'T like the idea of it being self-inflicted. So I'm removing that from the equation.
Each time she follows Peter Wink their encounter ends in a blocked path or obstacle that she can't overcome. She catches on and asks why. Peter never gives her a clear answer.
Later in her story, she has an unrelated accident, probably Shydog related, and nearly dies.
The next time she follows Peter Wink, she finds at the moment when they would normally part ways, the path is open. Eventually she'll follow him down it.
This opens things up a little. It's not nearly as extreme as the first concept and gives me some wiggle room to explore her motives.
Her ultimate request from Peter each time she takes the risk of following him is that he'll teach her to be more like a cat. She wants to be able to run and climb the way they do. He delivers. She's gets better at these things.
HOWEVER, he eventually takes her to the Cats Way where she literally has to run from her problems or face them outright.
*Except Jacky already HAD a near death experience so THIS WOULDN'T WORK >:I
I've gotten wrapped up in headworld building in the Cat's Way but I need to get back to the original story. >:I Jacky can't escape her problems by going there. She ends up having to face bigger, badder versions of them.
Jim represents her anxiety about Shydog. He deals with things too aggressively and can't be reasoned with until you meet him on his level.
Hours has completely withdrawn and refuses to face his.
I may have to tweak how she gets there in the first place. I like the idea of a near-death experience being required, but I'm not sure if that's the route I want to go for reasons.
Winks have influence over the Cat's Way because they make stars in their empty eye.
Humans played a part in starting the Cat's Eye tradition. Without them, there would have been no Winks, and without Winks, there would have been no stars. Without stars, there would be no Cat's Way.
