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#but its significantly worse if there's a LOT going on

autolenaphilia · 9 months

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The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

#my writings #mozilla firefox #google chrome #microsoft windows #linux #open source #foss

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a-dinosaur-a-day · 8 months

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Opinions on owning pet parrots? I'm doing a degree in animal welfare and have pretty much come to the conclusion that the smaller species are fine if you can provide what they need but the larger birds like the greys, outside of being rescues, shouldn't be pets at all.

Okaaaaaaaay so time to make everyone mad at me again I guess

parrots have been human companion animals for longer than Judaism has been around, so, I don't think we can just say "it's wrong" and force everyone to stop doing a thing that's been done for that long. Like, this isn't a human randomly taking home a tiger, this is a long going process with many species of parrots now being near-domesticated in the strictest sense of the term

Parrot ownership is in fact ancient in many "tropical" areas and the idea that it's a new thing is... white supremacy! what a shock!

in the United States (I am not talking about other countries, just my own), literally no companion parrots are wild caught anymore. They're bred. Bred as companions. If we were to outlaw larger parrot ownership, many birds would be without a home, and that's morally reprehensible

in fact, the kind of backlash against parrot ownership that's risen up in the past decade has directly led to a shelter crisis. most shelters are overfilled and overstressed, which is a *lot* worse for the birds in many cases than home ownership

parrots are pets that have extraordinarily high care needs. They are not good pets for everyone. but no pet is! Every single companion animal has its pluses and downsides, and many of them have many more downsides than pluses. Doesn't mean they shouldn't have a home.

There are some people who are actually able to take care of companion parrots, adequately, in their homes. First of all, we've learned a lot in the past few decades. Second of all, there are lifestyles that work well with even larger parrots and their needs.

So, while the number of human beings on this planet who can adequately take care of large parrots is extremely small, it is not zero. Which means if someone thinks they can take care of a bird well, and has the space and resources and time, then they should be allowed to, if that's what they wish

Because birds in the USA are bred as companions, the vast majority of said parrots would be unhappy in any situation that doesn't involve close contact with humans. Admittedly, all my parrots are "small" (whatever that means), but I know for a fact that if you took them away from our home they would be significantly worse off, because they're bonded to us. That's how this whole flocking thing works

Also, our most recent rescues, who had been stuck in a shelter for 15 years, are definitely happier now getting more individual attention and space. Shelters are supposed to be temporary places for most birds, not permanent homes, because they can't get the adequate level of care and attention that they need.

also, I'll point out that being pets has allowed many parrot species to have thriving populations that are not threatened by climate change, which is something to their benefit. given. you know. climate change. not that pet ownership is conservation, but, it's not that far removed from it - the axolotl population owes a lot to both pet ownership and zoo captivity, for example.

like, it's a spectrum, right? And it doesn't really go along with size, at the end of the day. There are tons of extremely neurotic and high needs small parrots, and many larger ones that are exceptionally chill. So while the vast majority of humans on this planet should not have a parrot, that's not all of them; and while the number that can handle higher maintenance ones is even smaller, its not zero. And I think, given the fact that we have all of these captive bred birds in the states at least, it's not a good idea to tell people that there is no way to ethically practice husbandry with them.

and I'm not the kind of person who assumes I know everything about someone's life in order to tell them "no you shouldn't bring home that cockatoo", so I'm not going to. In fact, I give everyone on the internet the benefit of the doubt if they have a parrot unless a) that parrot shows signs of distress (like plucking) or b) there is clearly something wrong going on (like someone's smoking weed around their bird)

so, no, there's no commonly kept (and thus domestically captive bred) bird I think is a bad pet for every single human on the planet. And it's not my business whether a particular individual should or should not have a particular bird.

#parrots #pet parrots #birds #aviculture #parrot husbandry

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itsclydebitches · 1 month

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Hazbin Hotel: Let's Talk About Cursing!

Trigger warning for lots of cursing in this post (obviously) and discussion of canon abuse scenes

As I delve further into the Hazbin Hotel fandom, I’ve inevitably come across a variety of people who dislike the show for an equal variety of reasons. One criticism I’ve seen with some consistency is in regards to the cursing and yeah, I get it. That’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. However, the repeated claim that the cursing is only there as a—failed—attempt at bad, lazy humor got me thinking about why I personally liked the cursing, and why I think it serves a greater purpose in the show.

Now yes, some of the cursing does function as an arguably simplistic joke. The most common setup I’ve noticed is one that leans into a contrast in tone/personalities. We see this a lot with the polite, comparatively timid Charlie as she navigates her distinctly vulgar domain.

Charlie: “Hi, mister!” Demon: “Go fuck yourself!”

The entirety of “Happy Day in Hell” plays with this contrast, setting up Charlie’s slightly skewed, but significantly optimistic perspective of Hell. We are shown again and again how her lyrics are contradicted or twisted into something less innocent through the visuals: a “revealing” street where it’s “hard not to stare” has BDSM going on in a nearby window, Charlie will “open the door” for her people and then literally does so... for a guy who’s already dead. (Or, you know, temporarily out of commission until he heals, or whatever demons do when they’re ‘killed’ by things other than angelic steel.) The entire point here is to contrast the happy, skipping girl claiming that there’s a “warm, fuzzy feeling” in the air with the actual environment of unchecked fires and decaying limbs. And yes, that can be amusing. Not necessarily for everyone as humor is highly subjective and dependent on context, but distilling this contrast down to the shock of a polite greeting getting a “Go fuck yourself!” in response is a kind of entertainment. Especially when Charlie’s reaction adds another layer: for me that’s a very funny—and currently relatable—expression.

We can potentially make the case that this humor format overstays its welcome, but I personally think the show does a good job of keeping Charlie’s cursing both simple and comparatively rare, so that when she is put into these contrast situations the humor lands better. The best example I can think of in the latter half of the show is Susan. There we get the whiplash of polite, trying-to-get-these-people-to-like-her Charlie reaching a breaking point to become “FUCK YOU, YOU OLD BITCH” Charlie. It’s a moment that builds off of the earlier surprise of the courteous Alastor calling someone an “Ornery old bitch”—while Rosie is trying (and failing) to find a nicer way to phrase this.

However, as stated above I think the cursing serves more of a purpose than to just be funny for (some) viewers. Beyond those who simply find cursing distasteful, I’ve seen a fair bit of, “This is so stupid. No one even talks like that!” going around.

Except... I do? I talk like that.

See, I like cursing. I was born to former hippie parents and grew up playing MMOs, so cursing was something I became pretty acclimated to. Personally, I’m glad I was because I’m fascinated by language and cursing—for better or worse—is an integral way that many people communicate. I was taught to see cursing not as the Bad Forbidden Thing You Must Never Ever Do, but rather as just another form of expression, something to be used in moderation and under specific circumstances. Once I became an adult I already understood how I wanted to curse and when it was appropriate to do so. People at work are often shocked when I tell them I curse a lot because no, of course I’m not doing that at my job. That isn't considered professional in this space. Among my friends though?

We can sound a lot like the Hazbin crew.

Undoubtedly the most common curse in the show is “fuck” and its variations, which very much tracks with my personal experience among other people who curse. In fact, it’s so ubiquitous that it barely counts as a curse at all in some groups. It’s more of an easy, accepted way to add emphasis. Vaggie’s “What the fuck was that?” about Alastor’s commercial is a perfect example. She’s pissed and simply saying “What was that?” doesn’t carry the same weight, no matter how angry she may sound when she says it. Vox’s long “Fuuuuuuuck” at the end of “Stayed Gone” conveys an emotion you just can’t capture any other way. No dialogue at all would create a fundamentally different experience of Vox’s feelings and another non-cursing response is just gonna hit different. Not necessarily bad, just different.

“I don’t want to go to the party!” “I don’t want to go to the freaking party!” “I don’t want to go to the fucking party!”

The above represents three distinct characters to me and I think Hazbin Hotel gets that. Cursing isn’t thrown around randomly because something something cursing supposedly sells; it’s all linguistically logical. Characters curse when something surprising or bad happens, or when something unexpectedly good happens, when they’re angry, trying to be sexy, or they want to add that emphasis. That’s a lot of different situations where cursing can be useful and when you use “fuck” in your daily life a lot you become pretty desensitized to it. As said, for many it’s barely a curse at all. Which means that when you really want to curse you’ve got to up the ante. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that the two uses of “cunt” I can recall—a word that is generally considered far worse than “fuck” and makes a lot of people understandably uncomfortable—is used by two of the worst characters in moments that are meant to horrify the viewer:

Adam: “Can’t wait a whole year to slaughter those little cunts / I know it’s just been a week, but we’ll be back in six months!” Valentino: “When I say you’d better get that fucking cunt out of my studio, you say...?”

This horror is especially emphasized in Valentino’s scene. The creators know this word is coming up and deliberately build towards it. Angel is currently being abused and has been reminded that Valentino “owns” him. The above question is a part of a trio that Valentino asks (a standard structure in writing), wherein the third option is the outlier/most shocking of the three. The animation leans into that shock, with the music building and Valentino grabbing Angel to pull him close right on the word “cunt.” Perez even puts emphasis there because he knows that this is a significant word that will change our understanding of Valentino.

Despite having hit Angel multiple times and taunting him with the contract, this is the moment Valentino stops playing the ‘nice’ employer. This is the real him. No more fake compliments and endearments aimed at Charlie, no more fake comfort/intimacy aimed at Angel. That “cunt” conveys a hell of a lot about how Valentino really sees them and when you have a cast of characters who are already cursing on the regular, it takes a word on that level to do that kind of work. If Valentino had said, “get that fucking bitch out of my studio” it wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact because he’s the kind of guy who uses "bitch" even when playing ‘nice.’

Adam’s line from “Hell is Forever” does very similar work. The scene needs a word to align with the horrific reveal that another extermination is just six months away, that conveys Adam’s deep disgust for Charlie’s people, and that still catches the viewer’s attention even though he’s the character (I believe) who curses the most. Here the music drops and Adam is a little closer to speaking than singing; there's this shift because, like with Valentino, our perception of him is shifting. This isn’t just some egotistical idiot who wants to be called “Dick Master,” he’s the leader of an army coming to gleefully kill them. Framing a whole world of people—people Charlie loves��as “cunts” while treating their murder as a holiday that can’t come soon enough creates an, 'Oh shit. This guy is actually a threat' understanding that you can’t quite get with anything else.

On a smaller scale, cursing does other character work throughout the whole show. I watched a number of cursing compilation vids for this meta (that was a trip lol) and again, cursing is not thrown in randomly. Each character has a unique way of cursing that aligns with their personality and motivations:

As said, Adam curses the most in the show which helps sell his truly over-the-top, irreverent personality. Linguistically, the amount he curses also allows for some fun grammatical play. Lines like, “Fucking love putting my name on shit, shit’s the best!” help convey the versatility of cursing.

Also as said, Charlie curses a fair bit but she’s comparatively polite and her cursing tends to be a result of genuinely big emotions—like saying “Crap” when she’s shocked and falls, or “Shit!” when Adam locks her out of the room—rather than sprinkled into her conversations as a modifier. That leaves space to create those moments of amused surprise when Charlie really let’s loose.

Sr Pentious curses even less than Charlie which fits his secretly gooey center. He talks a big game at the start of the show, but he’s actually quite bad at being, well, bad (especially the Amazon version compared to pilot!Pentious). His idea of getting one over on Alastor is ripping a bit of his coat. He loves his Egg Bois and “doesn’t want to live” without them. He has no desire to go into battle without minions/a big machine to hide behind and, of course, he’s the first to be redeemed. He's too much of a secret sweetheart to curse a lot.

Interestingly, Niffty doesn’t seem to curse at all. At least, not enough for me to think of examples off the top of my head. Right now I’m inclined to read that as an extension of her lived experiences/design—the cute 1950’s housewife archetype who is obsessed with keeping things clean doesn’t [gasp!] curse—as well as a way to maintain her legitimate creep factor. As said, cursing is common among the hotel residents and is a way for them to linguistically fit in. Niffty, however, is positioned more as an outsider (despite how much they all obviously love her): she’s actually scary in a way most demons aren’t and despite how weird this whole world is, she stands out as someone no one else can make sense of (even Alastor). If cursing is normal, Niffty is a character who is decidedly positioned as not normal.

Angel curses a fair bit, though his irreverence is conveyed more through innuendos. Angel is great at verbally twisting others’ words (especially Husk’s) to give himself a conversational advantage:

Husk: “Go fuck yourself” Angel: “Only if you watch me~”

Husk: “You’ve come—” Angel: [very loud orgasm noise] Husk: “...to the right place.”

Meanwhile, Husk uses “fuck” plenty, but he’s also one of the few characters who use “bullshit" too. I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly revealing about that choice, but just giving him a go-to curse that’s otherwise used infrequently helps make his character distinct in a cast of other cursing characters.

Vaggie occasionally curses in Spanish, showing us her heritage if she used to be human, or a distinct knowledge/verbal preference if she’s always been an angel.

Heaven, as the ‘good’ side, doesn’t curse as a general rule, which leaves room for cursing to do more of that silent character work. We’re reminded of the stuffy, overly critical beings she’s dealing with when Charlie receives the combined judgement of the court for saying, “Fuck yeah!” In contrast, we understand just how shocked St. Peter is to see a Morningstar when he lets out an unintentional “Fuck!” The angry vindication of Charlie’s “That’s what the fuck I’ve been saying!” lands harder after multiple scenes of very little cursing, and Lute’s “Some crack-whore who fucked up already? / He blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth—” helps set her apart as an exorcist + Adam's second in command: her shocking violence comes through in her word choice too; words that supposedly don't belong in Heaven.

In what’s arguably the funniest line in the whole show, Lucifer undermines his dramatic standoff with Adam by going, “You mess with my daughter and now I’m going to fuck you.” Beyond just cutting the tension, that fits his bumbling, oblivious personality perfectly. Lucifer is crazy powerful and can absolutely wreck Adam. He also has none of the classy intimidation that, say, Alastor displays when he tries to convey that. This is a depressed himbo who makes ducks in his free time and settles on, “Hey, bitch!” when greeting his estranged daughter. Of course he’s going to accidentally turn a threat into a promise of sex.

Which finally brings me to Alastor, someone whose cursing is already understood well by the fandom. He’s characterized as manipulatively courteous, using manners to both hide his true nature and draw attention to his power—’You’re so beneath me I’ll just calmly sip my coffee and politely ask who you are, despite the fact that we've fought multiple times.’ This is a guy who calls people “My dear” and unironically insults them with the phrase “wacky nonsense.” So when he curses you can BET it’s gonna have an impact. It sure did for me. I had to pause the episode after Alastor’s first “Fuck you” because it was so shocking to hear that language from him. And that’s the point! The scene wants that reaction from the audience. The "Fuck you"s visceral anger contrasting the fake laughs he and Lucifer have been giving, the quick-fire exchange that’s suddenly cut short by Alastor’s choice of a direct insult, the fact that he’s officially dropping the polite veneer they’ve both been indulging in and raising the stakes before Charlie intervenes, the loss of the radio filter that otherwise demonstrates his control over a situation... all of it screams, ‘THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CHARACTER MOMENT.’

"Fuck you” reveals that, for the first time in the show, Alastor is legitimately threatened by someone. Which makes sense given that, you know, Lucifer is the King of Hell. Cursing for Alastor isn’t normal, so when he does curse it’s going to reveal something about a guy who otherwise is obsessed with being unknowable. Having the King of Hell dismiss him is actually infuriating in a way Sir Pentious’ threats could never be and the exchange kicks off a rivalry that rattles Alastor in ways Vox’s never has. (Side note: is it any wonder people ship them? Character A making control freak Character B feel vulnerable is classic!) It’s no surprise to me than that the one other true curse we get from Alastor is, “I’m about to end your fucking life,” delivered to Adam who, like Lucifer, poses a legitimate threat and does end up beating him. I say “true” curse because calling Susan a “bitch” does similar work for him, but the takeaway is humorous rather than dramatic. It’s funny that the only people who can piss Alastor off enough to curse are the First Man/a powerful exorcist angel threatening his life, the literal King of Hell... and Susan.

So there’s a lot going on here, more than what many viewers might assume if they approach the show as just “stupid,” needlessly vulgar entertainment. As shown above, I don’t think the cursing is needless, especially given that, well... they’re in Hell. They’re sinners, supposedly the worst that humanity has to offer, so of course they're going to curse a lot. Does cursing mean you’re a bad person? No. Can you craft a hellish world that doesn't rely on cursing to convey a group's immoral nature? Sure.

Does it make sense that a writer would equate a sinful, irreverent cast with linguistic rebellion and would want to convey a certain vibe that, frankly, you just can’t get without dropping an F bomb?

Yeah, I think so. No one has to like that kind of creative decision, but it’s worth acknowledging it as a deliberate choice.

That’s all! Thanks for reading this fucking long post ✌️

#Hazbin Hotel #Hazbin Hotel meta #mymetas #tw cursing #cw cursing #tw abuse #cw abuse

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thatanimeramenchick · 3 months

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Headcanons for Vox and Alastor both falling in love with an extremely powerful Overlord known as the Pink Death, she is called that because she's thought of as an incurable plague that consumes and annihilates everything she comes into contact with and she's a Pink Bunny demon and she's so powerful all the other Overlords, even Zestial are terrified of her, since when she arrived in Hell, she killed every Overlord that existed in that time and took their powers?

Incredibly Powerful Reader

Since this is a yandere blog, this will be done with that in perspective.

I also want to do this with the mindset that it is impossible to technically permanently kill other demons without angelic weapons. It is true that Alastor has made other demon overlords “disappear,” but I feel like it’s implied that he has somehow destroyed them in a way that is much worse than death, perhaps in a horrific existence in between realities? I don’t know. Anyway, I feel like the killing people with diseases temporarily and being a major threat is still an interesting view though. The complete toll you could have on demon and sinner society by wiping them out in waves whenever you felt like it would give you a lot of power in hell.

Anyway, when it comes to the guys, I see them actually sharing quite a few things at first.

Both of them would hope that their experience and ability to play manipulation games would allow for them to outsmart you, even if you are significantly more powerful than they are. Whether they actually do or not depends on you and your personality, but I could see them getting the upper hand if you’re not careful, especially Alastor.

Both of them also would hope to win you into a contract that allows them to have you under the thumb, but they would present it as giving you a power boost to help you clinch full power over hell. The details of this contract and their way of going about it will differ, but ultimately that is the goal each of them would have.

Vox

Media thrives on disaster. You’ve created a gold mine of content for this man. His interest in you would simply start out as using your story to promote his own company, and it would later turn into an obsession. Considering how the Vees are able to stay safe during extermination day through extreme isolation, I don’t think he would be too worried about the infection for similar reasons, simply being annoyed that it’s hurting the company as it’s messing with staff and therefore production.

If you decide to reject him, he can paint your powers to his advantage, threatening to use the media to paint you as a monster that hell needs to rally against at any cost. On the other hand, he could offer you a sweet deal if you want to get along nicely with him. He could make sure that everyone knows you’re the most powerful overlord in hell and that you should be respected and admired as well as feared. This is when the contract comes in, where he gets to portray you how you’d like as well as provide comfy living arrangements as long as you are willing to work alongside his company and only his company. He’ll make sure you’re on a higher position in the company than the underlings, considering how much power you have. Oh, and he’ll add a little clause that you’re not to turn your nasty tricks on him either.

Alastor

Alastor is more cautious than Vox is. While I see Vox as going the direct approach with you and a clear plan of aggression, Alastor would take his time, watching you from the shadows. He would want to get a clear idea of your personality and all its strengths and weaknesses before approaching you. Last thing he would want to do is simply irritate you.

I feel like his approach to you would be somewhat similar to how I think he is approaching Charlie. You are young and so perfectly easy to influence. Your potential is overflowing, surely you don’t want to waste it? If are just willing to submit to his ideals, he could make you the greatest overlord of all time, as well as gain total control of hell. The contract would be along similar lines. He would not rush the business like Vox would. He doesn’t want you to think he simply wants to use your powers after all. You have to feel like you’re giving in willingly because it benefits the both of you.

He would be subtle in his affection. He would make it seem like a business contract, but as you got entangled deeper and deeper in a mess you would come to see that he has a much more possessive and controlling relationship with you than you first thought. The details of the contract that at first seemed to exist to gain you some extra experience and security now seem like chains keeping you attached to a master has no intention of ever letting you become independent in your own right.

#yandere x reader #hazbin hotel #alastor #vox #yandere alastor #yandere vox

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junkdrawerfics · 9 months

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First Meeting

Jasper Hale X Reader

Series of Firsts

Summary: The first time you meet Jasper Hale is when you get lost in the woods. Is he your rescuer or the danger you should be looking out for, though?

Words: 1712

Note: New series wooh! Hope you guys enjoy!

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Moving to Forks in the middle of summer had its pros and cons.

Pro: You have plenty of time to explore and get to know the area.

Pro: You can adjust to the new home before school starts.

Con: You haven’t been able to meet many people your age and therefore have no friends yet.

Con: You thought it would be nice to take a walk by the woods, but you swear you saw a hurt cat and you tried to help it but it ran away and you followed it and now you’re lost.

The last point may not have anything to do with it being summer, but still.

On the bright side, you did catch the little guy! Not without a few scratches, but you got him.

You perch yourself on a tree stump, a small tabby kitten nestled in your arms, completely tuckered out from running. Careful to not jostle him, you give him a good once over. It looks like he was maybe clipped by a car, or maybe a bike, dried blood running down one of his legs which looks significantly out of place.

Poor thing.

Sighing softly, you tuck him back into your lap and glance around. The trees all look the same, and you have no clue what direction you came from. There’s no way to tell what time it is either, since you left your phone at home and the sun is completely blocked out by the clouds. Not the best situation.

At least it’s still light out, you think to yourself. It could be a lot worse. For now, it’s light, you’re warm, and you told your mom you were going out before you did, so she should notice when you don’t come back in a few hours.

If you don’t make it back yourself, that is!

“I don’t suppose you know the way out?” You hum, scratching the small kitten’s head as he raises his head at the sound of your voice. He looks at you with dark amber eyes, barely open.

“Mew.”

“Hm, I thought so.” You shake your head with a fond smile. “That’s okay. Maybe if I just start walking, I’ll find someone.”

The kitten grumbles a little when you pop to your feet. Might as well go with your gut, right? That’s what people usually do in situations like this. So, you go to set off in the directions you think you came from. Hopefully.

Until you hear a loud snap come from behind you.

Every muscle in your body goes still. The ball of fur in your arms bristles, suddenly far more alert, letting out a quiet, squeaking hiss. It makes your chest tighten, a spark of fear and realization traveling through your bones.

Are there predators in these woods?

“You’ll hit the coast before you find a soul if you go that way.”

The sound of a low, rumbling voice immediately puts you at ease, the tension dripping from your shoulders. Thank the heavens you don’t have to wander even deeper into the woods. There’s no telling how much more lost you could get. You turn to thank your savior, eyes going wide when they land on him.

Pretty. That’s your first thought.

He’s very pretty. For a moment, you could even convince yourself you are just looking at a sculpture abandoned in the woods. He’s tall, very tall, gold hair falling to his sharp jaw, skin shockingly pale in the dim light. His eyes, dark and narrowed, glint with curiosity and maybe a hint of concern as he looks you over.

Heat flares across your cheeks. This feels straight out of some teen romance novel. A handsome stranger comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress. Except, while he is a handsome stranger, you are dressed in an oversized, pastel hoodie with cat scratches all over your face and hands. Not to mention the mangy kitten in your arms who looks like he wants to kill the man.

What a sight this must be for him.

You offer your rescuer a wide, somewhat awkward smile, “Thanks for telling me. I definitely have no clue where I am, if you can’t tell.”

The man tilts his head, brows furrowing, “How’d you end up all the way out here?”

“Well-” You shrug, shifting back and forth on your feet. “-it was just supposed to be a walk, but then I saw this little guy and he looked like he needed help.”

His eyes dart down to the small kitten in your arms, lips twitching in amusement. The fluff ball glares back at him without hesitation. You shuffle him in your arms a little, trying to get him to calm down, but he stubbornly clings to your sleeve so he can see the blond.

“I chased him out here,” you continue, settling for just clutching him against your chest, just in case he tries to be rude. “His leg looks pretty bad and I just couldn’t leave him, you know? I’m pretty sure he needs a vet, but I don’t know how to get back to town. Could you maybe um…”

You trail off. You shouldn’t hesitate to ask for help, you know it’s silly, but you don’t want to bother this guy. What if he was on his way somewhere? Maybe he could just point you in the right direction. But what if it gets dark before you get home? The thought of walking through the woods at night is not one you’d like to live through.

After a hard second of him looking at you, as if trying to figure out whether you’re a threat or not - which feels kind of backwards if you’re being honest - the man seems to soften. His posture loosens and a small, charming smile slants his lips.

Your heart stutters.

In a very old-school, gentlemanly way, he offers you his hand, “It’d be a privilege to escort you back, miss-?”

You stare at his extended hand, completely oblivious to his question until you glance up and see him watching you expectantly, lips pursed, dark eyes dancing with amusement.

Oh!

“(Y/n),” you blurt quickly, face going impossibly redder. “My name’s (Y/n) (L/n)! I just moved here.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, (Y/n).” The smile comes back, wider, brighter, and you want to melt. “Name’s Jasper Hale, I’ve lived here quite some time.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, too, Jasper Hale,” you chime, finally taking his hand (much to the kitten’s displeasure). “Especially now. I would've been wandering out here for a long time if you hadn’t showed up. Who knows what’s out here.”

Something flashes through Jasper’s eyes, but he merely smiles and agrees, “You can never be too careful.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time,” you sigh, following him as he starts in the opposite direction you were going to go, “It’s my fault for thinking I didn’t need my phone. It’s just my luck to not have it the one time I need it.”

“Bad luck finds you at the worst times,” he hums wistfully.

“This is your fault,” you whisper down at the kitten, who has settled down a little bit, “You’re not even black, how are you so unlucky?”

He blinks up at you, looking unimpressed. You laugh, scratching his chest softly.

“I think he’s mocking me,” you murmur, “He probably doesn’t even need my help based on the fight he put up.”

“He just doesn’t know what’s good for him,” Jasper chuckles, something fond starting to grow in his chest.

He had been hunting when the scent of fresh blood had drawn him further into the woods. He didn’t even remember moving, hunting it down, nothing until he came to a dead stop there at the edge of the small clearing. That’s where he found you, watched as you slowly, patiently coaxed the angry kitten into your arms.

He doesn’t know what made him stop. What overcame the burning thirst in his throat. But when he laid eyes on you, listened to you talk to the kitten as if it would talk back, felt the gentle positivity coming off of you like pure warmth, it just disappeared.

Replaced with a burning curiosity and something fiercely protective.

Who was this girl he’d never seen before? Why was she all the way out in the woods, at least thirty minutes from the town? Alone? What if something happened to her?

The moment you started walking in the wrong direction, he couldn’t stop himself. Against his better judgment, of course. He couldn’t just let you wander off alone, though. The others will probably be angry with him once he gets back, but at least he can make sure you get home safely.

Which he does.

You stop at the edge of your yard, turning to him with the softest, most genuine smile, brimming with gratitude.

“Thank you, Jasper. Really. I hope this isn’t the last time we meet?” Your eyes glow with so much hope, and he can’t bring himself to deny it.

He should. He should stay far away from you, because something tells him that as much as this new feeling in his chest could be something good, it could also be something horribly dangerous. For you. He should stop it here and now, cut all ties.

But he saw how well that worked for Edward.

So he nods, dares to lift your hand to his lips and press a ghost of a kiss to your knuckles. Jasper can feel your life under his fingers, hear your pulse race, and he expects the thirst to come roaring back, to feel some kind of temptation, but the only thing he feels is your overflowing, bashful joy. And he loves it.

“Until next time, miss (L/n),” he murmurs, and you giggle, “Try not to run after any more injured animals, alright?”

“I’ll try,” you promise, feeling high as a kite.

“Good.” Jasper grins.

He watches you go inside, just to be safe, making eye contact one last time with the furry, little creature still in your arms, right before the door falls shut. It glares at him, tiny tail thrashing.

Unlucky, you said.

Maybe.

You’ll both have to wait and see.

---

I'm pretty excited about this new little series! It'll be super simple, just a series about different "firsts" you have with Jasper, ie first kiss, first date, etc. If you want anything specific, let me know!

Also, I know it might be a little unrealistic, but I don't care! That's not what this is about lol

#reader insert #x reader #reader #jasper hale #jasper whitlock #twilight saga #jasper hale x reader #jasper whitlock x reader #twilight #jasper x reader #series of firsts #cute meet #kinda

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bobbile-blog · 4 months

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Not sure if anyone’s said this yet but now that we have Laterano events plural I’m fascinated by their (imo) very deliberate choice of protagonists, and there are almost a couple of layers of narrative going on there. I struggle a little figuring out how to get this into words but specifically I think they’re chosen to be people who can carry a narrative without contradicting the orthodox morals of the church. There’s a LOT of vaguely anti-authoritarian rambling below the cut so please kindly bear with me and my English major brain.

I can’t really start there though. One of the reasons this is so brain hurty is how deeply it’s woven into the storyline, so to start, I have to verbalize how Laterano and Arknights writing more generally is different from other, similar settings. Because like, I hear the words “morally negative church in a grimdark setting” and my brain immediately shuts off. Come on, that’s so far beyond low-hanging fruit, if you’ve seen any grimdark setting ever you know exactly what that looks like. And sure, it was fine the first two or three times you saw it, depending on your tolerance for that kinda thing, but it gets boring quick and even when it was new it was kinda uninteresting story-wise. “Religion is always fake because it inspires hope which means everyone who takes meaning from it is either a corrupt grifter or naive and misled” isn’t just edgy nonsense, it’s also basically useless as an actual critique. It tells you absolutely nothing except how to tune out a particular kind of story, and a story that tries to get you to hear less is doing its job wrong.

So, Arknights does something different. Instead of denying the premise of the church entirely, it actually takes it at its word. Laterano is, in almost every definition of the word, a paradise. It is basically unmatched in terms of actual quality of life, with its only competitors being the Durin cities and maybe Aegir, and is worlds apart from now much the rest of Terra sucks. More than that, though, the paradise is specifically tailored to the worldview of a religion with a strong central authority - when I say it takes it at its word, I mean the authoritarian bits too. Laterano is a city that lives in perfect order and peace because everyone follows the law perfectly and they all understand each other and never fight. Empathy is really important for this, as it allows for a believable amount of superhuman societal order. Laterano has very little crime, political drama, or quarrels in general. It’s the promises of a strict higher authority actually taken at face value: everyone follows the rules and that means they have effectively unfettered freedom, because they don’t want to break the rules and therefore they can do anything they want.

Laterano is specifically written to be a believable paradise in a setting that has none, so that when the story then turns around and criticizes that setting, it has significantly more weight. Even when the promises of paradise are taken at face value, there are still issues that cannot be addressed because the system is inherently flawed even in the imaginary scenario where it works. Even worse, the problems that poke holes in the imaginary perfect scenario are the same problems that they face in the real world, like “how do you deal with the interpretation of scriptures” and “hey there’s this racism thing I keep hearing about should we be worried about that or what”. Because of the way this imaginary perfect system works, we then look back on our real world in a new light and understand it a little better. It’s good critique.

Okay so how did we get here and what does this have to do with the protagonists? Well, this starts with Fiametta in Guide Ahead, because she’s a really weird protagonist. This is a cold take at this point but despite being the character on the front of the box, she has very little to actually do with the central conflict of the event. Most of the conflict is handled by Ezell first and Andoain second, and Fiametta mostly putters around putting holes in people until the finale where Andoain receives the answer he’s been looking for, he turns to explain it to the world, and he runs into the only person in the whole of Laterano who does not care about his motivations or his revelation. Her role, in other words, is to replace the climax of Andoain’s story with her own, and in doing so she makes it much harder to actually get a resolution and a meaning out of the story (this should not be taken as a criticism of her character, let me cook). Guide Ahead’s ending is hazy, with only small piecemeal resolutions to its conflicts, and for the longest time that was just the way the event was written and it stood on its own.

But now, Hortus de Escapismo is out and the monkey brain see patterns. Specifically, with the choice of protagonists. Because Executor is definitely different from Fiametta as a protagonist, but there’s one particularly important connection between the two, and that’s that as I mentioned in the beginning, they allow for stories don’t contradict orthodox morality. Fiametta we went over, as she’s uninterested in any of Andoain’s morality and just wants him dead. Executor, though, is purely focused on his mission and views the world through that lens. He only wants to achieve his objective, and while helping the needy is in line with the stated objectives of the church and he does do so when able, it’s secondary to his assigned task. He does change as he gets further into the story, and we’re not gonna ignore that, but we’ll be back to it later. What I mean is more that he is designed as a person who is able to lead a story that doesn’t contradict with the morals of Laterano. He sees the injustice and suffering around him, but that’s not his job, so he doesn’t need to solve it to have a complete story with a happy ending.

This is where it really gets complicated, so I apologize if I don’t explain this very well. I see this as us dealing with multiple layers of fiction: the events of the story, the perspective of the church, and our perspective as readers. Back to the first point - authoritarian institutions almost always use stories to sell people on their brand of order. Simple stories, simple enough that even calling them myths seems like overselling it a little, your “Saint George slays a dragon” kinda thing. This is the point of the second layer, the perspective of the church. I don’t really have an in-world justification for this layer - maybe you could make the argument that it has to do with Law’s perspective on things, but I don’t totally buy that - I think it’s more in a weird narrative transition space for people who don’t read very carefully. Regardless, Fiametta and Executor’s shared indifference to the questionable circumstances surrounding them is designed to let them tell a story to prop up the existing order. Their protagonist status and their missions are specifically constructed to allow them to ignore the suffering around them, and as such ignore the larger questions that might poke holes in the larger order. They’re both playing out the story of Saint George, where they go and find a bad guy and kill them and that’s all there is to it. The story is designed and told specifically for that “that’s all there is to it”.

But, as we said earlier, this is a good critique, and as such it intentionally undercuts this story with the third layer: what we actually see as readers. We are shown the suffering and the injustice, and then get to see our protagonists ignoring that to pursue their goals. This is what gives Guide Ahead’s ending its unique texture, which sets it apart from every other event with a vaguely unresolved ending. We have seen the actual issues with Laterano, and also watched our protagonist explicitly ignore them in favor of her own story. It’s unsatisfying in a way that only really makes sense to me if we as the readers have an understanding of intentional authorship. Whether it be Yvangelista XI or Law or The Actual Real Life Pope, there are issues here that we want to see a resolution to but people are choosing not to address them. Again, it’s good critique. Not only does it push the reader to unpack and understand the actual real-world technique, but it also helps blunt it. You have just seen a plot and protagonist ring uncharacteristically hollow. You then look around to see why that is, and you realize there are many things that should have been resolved that weren’t. The next time you see a story resolve with that same hollow-ness, you know where to look. Surprise! Harry Potter was propaganda the whole time. It’s okay, it was never good, you were just twelve.

I guess the last thing is where we go from here, because Executor’s story breaks this mold somewhat. In Hortus de Escapismo, he has to deal with a mission that isn’t actually bounded by his normal rules, and because of that he actually does have leeway to help the people around him. He starts as someone who is totally mission-focused, but by the end of the event he’s done a total 180 and is blocking Oren’s attack, which makes the mission harder but helps the non-mission-critical civilians of the monastery. He breaks from the rigid thinking of “kill the bad guy and that’s all there is do it”, and gives his attention to the people he isn’t supposed to see. I think this is an indication of the direction we’re going to be headed in the future with Laterano events. The events aren’t going to get better - they’re going to keep being just as morally murky and complicated as in the past - but the characters are going to get better at handling it, and when they do, they’re going to actually start to change things for the better.

Goddamn that was a lot of writing for 1 AM. I still have a. Lot of thoughts on this event with stuff like empathy and Lemuen and Federico being an autistic icon(my beloved) but I’m going to leave things there, I think, because if I write for any longer my phone is going to crash when I try to post this. Anyway if you actually made it to the end thanks for listening to me rambling and I hope that made sense. Cheers.

#arknights #arknights thoughts #hortus de escapismo #laterano #fiametta #executor arknights #I deadass had to ask folks to proofread this one #to make sure I didn’t sound like I didn’t sound off my rocker #also don’t mind my random Harry Potter slander that’s an entirely different rant

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the-bad-batch-baroness · 5 months

Text

Dancing Lights

Wolf!Wolffe x Fem!Reader

Summary: During a mission on a frigid planet, you get lost in a blizzard and Wolffe becomes desperate to find you before you freeze to death. Once he does, he’s forced to reveal a secret part of himself in order to protect you from a territorial pack of wolves.

Pairing: Wolf!Wolffe x Fem!Reader

Characters: Wolffe, Plo Koon

Tags & Warnings: 18+, implied/referenced nudity with no descriptions, established relationship, hurt/comfort, light angst, suggestive themes, implied sexual content, violence, blood, injuries, reader doesn’t know she’s pregnant, protective!wolffe, snowed in, abandoned cabin, cuddling for warmth, Brother Bear/Balto type spiritual references, happy ending

Word Count: 12.7k

Author's Note: The terms "alpha" and "mate" are used in one part of the fic for a very specific purpose as a language marker (there are NO sexual, kink, or ABO implications). There’s also a distinctive speech pattern shift between Wolffe talking to the wolves and Wolffe talking to himself and the reader. This is intentional. The perspective shifts between the reader and Wolffe a lot, but the change is always separated by a paragraph break. As always, please enjoy 💚

@clonexreaderbingo Square: Smile

Wolffe frantically searches for you. One minute you’re walking behind him and the next minute you’re gone. He trudges through the piling snow, calling out your name, barely a whisper over the raging winds and whipping snow, but receives no response for his efforts. The battalion lost long-range communications soon after the blizzard started and you’re not answering on comms, so his only hope is to find you before the drifting snow claims you. He can’t lose you, not now.

Wolffe only dares to backtrack so far to look for you, or he might lose the battalion as its dark gray silhouettes slowly fade into the white tundra. Wolffe stares out into the nothingness and calls your name as loud as his voice will let him. Then he waits, hoping for a shred of your voice to make it back to him, but he hears nothing. Gritting his teeth, he turns on his heels and uses the backs of his men as wayfinders to trudge his way up to the front of the procession.

“General,” Wolffe shouts over the storm.

“Yes, commander?” Plo Koon asks as his snow covered parka blows wildly in the wind.

“We’ve lost one of the… men,” Wolffe says, pausing to consider whether he should name you as the lost soldier. He knows how Jedi feel about attachments, and he’s not in the mood for a lecture. “They appear to be lost in the storm.”

“Have you attempted to make contact?” Plo Koon asks.

“Yes, sir,” Wolffe answers. “Multiple times, sir, with no success.”

Plo Koon raises his hand to his face in thought. “That is a predicament.”

“Sir,” Wolffe begins in a serious tone, “with your permission, I want to go after them.”

“That would be ill-advised, commander,” Plo Koon answers. “The storm is getting worse and we must advance to the rendezvous point before we become buried in it ourselves.”

“But sir,” Wolffe argues. “We can’t afford to lose anymore men. Our numbers are dwindling as it is. We need to find them.”

Plo Koon crosses his arms and waits a moment to respond, reading Wolffe through the force like an open book. “Attachments are dangerous, commander. As lethal as this storm.”

Wolffe grimaces and shifts on his feet like a child getting caught in a lie. “I don’t believe in leaving men behind, sir.”

Plo Koon’s facial features soften and he places a gloved hand on Wolffe’s shoulder. “Neither do I, but you are needed here. Perhaps we can send a scout.”

The general is both right and wrong. Having their commander walk away in the middle of a stressful situation will reduce the battalion’s morale significantly. They have been marching to their next rendezvous point for days, and the blizzard is only making it more difficult. However, there is no way in the stars above that a mere scout will be able to find you in this storm. The scout is more likely to get himself lost. But Wolffe? He can find you, without a shred of doubt.

“With all due respect, sir,” Wolffe argues, clenching his fists together to hold his composure. “I am the most suited for this mission. You know this. I refuse to risk any more of my men dying in this storm and being buried unceremoniously under a pile of snow.”

Plo Koon considers Wolffe’s words and the conviction behind them, then sighs. “Very well.”

“Thank you, sir,” Wolffe says, finally releasing the breath he was holding in.

“However,” Plo Koon continues. “We cannot halt the convoy or render aid if you fail your mission. You will be on your own.”

“I understand,” Wolffe nods before turning to walk away.

“And Wolffe,” Plo Koon adds quickly. “Come back safely. Both of you.”

Wolffe doesn’t answer, but the sentiment shared between the two is unmistakable. He will bring you both back safely, or it’s the last thing he’ll do. Wolffe climbs up into the ATTE he’s been living in for the duration of this campaign and grabs his pack. He grabs everything he might need, including canteens, rations, medical supplies, an emergency blanket, and a spare set of blacks, as well as tossing out anything that he knows he won’t need. Traveling light is a must.

Before making his departure, Wolffe seeks out Sinker and temporarily puts him in charge of the battalion for the duration of his absence. Leaving the battalion in Sinker’s hands is an easy decision for Wolffe to make. The sergeant has been by his side since the beginning of the war, and has shown considerable aptitude and courage under distress. Wolffe knows that he is up for the challenge and has faith in him to lead the men to the rendezvous point mostly unscathed.

With everything in order, Wolffe hops down from the ATTE, his boots sinking deeply into the fresh fallen snow beneath. The wind is ripping and visibility is minimal, but Wolffe steels himself and sets out in the opposite direction of the battalion. After a few yards, he looks back. The gray silhouettes of the men and machines are gone. There’s no turning back now. He faces forward, picking his feet up and over the snow in a painstakingly slow process, but at least he’s moving.

As he trudges through the blizzard, snow begins sticking to his armor and weighing him down. He stops every so often to brush himself off, but it quickly becomes a useless effort. He grumbles to himself that of all the planets you had to get lost on, why did it have to be this one? He’s not angry, but he is scared; scared for you and for the little package you carry inside you unawares. Regardless of how he feels about the situation, he is determined to find you.

After a little while longer, he stops and stands still. The snow swirls around him, covering his visor and the gray markings on his armor. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, calling on the senses lying dormant within him to come to the surface and aid him in his search. No human or comm system can find you in this storm, but maybe he can. Maybe the wolf inside him can. A spirit of a bygone era that speaks to his soul at night and shows him images of dancing lights.

Wolffe removes his helmet, a dangerous move in this type of weather. The temperature alone could kill him with frostbite, but he needs to feel the air around him. The cold nips at the tips of his ears and wind blows through his short hair without caution, leaving little bits of frost at the tips. With his eyes still closed, he breathes deeper, calming every nerve in his body until he can find your presence. If we can’t locate you like this, then he’ll be forced to make a drastic move.

Suddenly, it clicks like a strike of lightning. Whether it’s a feeling, a sense, or an intuition, he knows where he needs to go. He shakes the snow off his head and replaces his helmet, bristling as the cold snow melts down the back of his neck. But, he doesn’t have time to worry about his comfort at the moment. Every second he wastes thinking about himself is another second lost trying to find you. He turns and starts walking, letting his internal compass guide him to you.

As he continues forward, the storm lets up a little. He wonders if the change will be permanent or if it’s just a momentary lull. Again, he doesn’t have time to think about the logistics when you could already be dead and frozen, buried under a pile of snow. He shakes his head at the intrusive thoughts, then notices a ridgeline of trees in the distance. His stomach flips and his breath quickens. He knows you’re in there. You’re smart. Of course, you’d try to find shelter.

Wolffe moves as fast as he can through the piled snow towards the forest of trees. He senses that you are nearby. He stops at the edge of the wooded area and scans to the left and to the right, searching, listening, hoping, and praying that he’s not too late and that he can find you still alive. As he’s standing there, a shiver runs up his spine and he knows he needs to find you soon. If he can find you in this weather, so can they, and he’s not in the mood to deal with that.

He enters the tree line cautiously, then hears a sound in the distance that stills his heart. He doesn’t have much time to find you. Breaking out into his best sprint through the deep snow, he pulls on the trees and branches for leverage, making his movements faster as he frantically searches for you. You're close. He can feel it. He can smell it. His heart is beating out of his chest at the sound. They’re coming, a lot of them, and he doesn’t want to be here when they arrive.

Wolffe releases a heavy sigh of relief when he finally sees you, or rather, he sees your emergency shelter tied to a couple trees. You have the beacon on, but its light is barely visible against the white and gray landscape. The shelter is partially buried by the snow and Wolffe falls to his knees to dig you out. The wet snow seeps through his gloves, and the cold bites at his fingertips, but he doesn’t care. He continues digging until he finds the opening of the shelter.

Once he finds the entrance, he digs a bit deeper to make a little path for him to snake his body down and get into the shelter to get you out. When the path is wide enough for his body, he gets on his stomach and shimmies his way to where the zipper is. He pulls it open just enough to peek inside and no more. That’s when he sees you, curled up into a protective ball, covered in an emergency blanket, with a small heat lamp in the middle of the shelter to keep you warm.

“Cyare,” Wolffe calls gently as he opens the entrance wider and wiggles the upper half of his body into the tent. There’s barely enough room for him to crawl on his hands and knees.

You stir and make a small grunting noise.

Wolffe releases another sigh of relief, then rests his forehead against the cold canvas floor of the shelter. He thanks the stars you're still alive. Sadly, his brief moment of relief is quickly interrupted when he hears the sound in the distance again. They’re getting closer and he’s running out of time. He picks his head up and curses under his breath. He needs to get the both of you out of here now, or there will be trouble, and not the type he can easily deal with.

Wolffe stretches out his hand and tugs on your foot, trying to wake you from your sleep. “Cyare,” he calls a little louder.

You startle awake. The light from the tent-opening blinds you for a moment and the cold air nips at your exposed face. When your eyes finally adjust, you see Wolffe’s familiar bucket staring at you. “Wolffe?”

“It’s me,” he says.

“You found me!” you exclaim with excitement.

Wolffe wiggles the rest of his body into the small tent and pulls you into his arms the best he can, gently pressing you against his armored chest. He removes his bucket and rests his forehead against yours. “I found you.”

The sweet reunion is cut short when Wolffe hears the sound again, but this time, it’s not so distant. He jumps into action, releasing you and putting his bucket back on. “Pack up,” he orders. “We have to go. Now.”

You're shocked by the sudden urgency, but you follow Wolffe’s lead and begin rolling up the blanket. “What’s the hurry? The storm–”

“They’re coming,” Wolffe interrupts while stuffing all of the loose items into your pack.

“Who’s coming?” you ask in confusion. One minute you’re sleeping peacefully in your shelter as you wait out the storm and the next minute Wolffe is rushing you back out into the storm.

“We don’t have time for me to explain!” Wolffe snaps. He feels more afraid than he was before he found you.

You’re slightly offended by his harsh tone, but if you know anything about Wolffe, it’s that he doesn’t mess around, especially when it has to do with someone’s safety. You decide not to push the issue and hasten your pace to get things wrapped up. The good thing about emergency shelters is that they’re quick to assemble and even quicker to tear down. You both finish with the pack and you follow Wolffe outside of the shelter and break that down too.

Before you get in another word edgewise, Wolffe grabs your arm and pulls you along through the snow. His grip is tight and you struggle to keep up, feeling like your arm will rip out of its socket. “Wolffe, stop!” you shout while pulling on his arm with your free hand. “Let go!”

Wolffe ignores your struggle, believing that you’ll forgive him later for his roughness when you’re both safe. He doesn’t have the time to coddle you or explain why you need to run away as fast as you can. Your yelling doesn’t help his cause, but then again, they don’t need to hear you in order to find you. It’s already too late, Wolffe knows this, but he refuses to give up without at least trying to get you to safety. Even if he has to deal with it on his own, he needs you safe.

You continue to struggle against Wolffe’s grasp and fight him with each step as you demand an explanation from him. He doesn’t give you one. He doesn’t even turn around to look at you. He just keeps walking, not letting up on his brisk pace that has you panting in cold air that burns your lungs. Finally, in a last ditch effort, and to give your lungs and legs a break, you let your legs go slack and plop yourself down into the snow, jerking on Wolffe’s arm on the way down.

Wolffe stops and grunts in frustration. “We don’t have time for this!”

“Wolffe!” you yell through a panting breath while trying to get him to listen to you. “I can’t keep up. My legs. My lungs. It hurts.”

Wolffe lets go of your arm and paces in a circle as he thinks. “I need you to get up.”

“I told you, I can’t!” you argue.

Wolffe kneels down on the snow in front of you and removes his bucket. He grabs both of your cheeks and forces you to look into his eyes. “I need you to get up. Now.”

His gloves feel cold on your skin and for a moment you see something flash across his eyes, something desperate that you’ve never seen in him before. But before you get to respond, you hear it. The sound of howling in the distance. You watch as Wolffe tilts his head to the side to peek around you and in an instant, you finally understand. How he heard them before you did, you may never know, but that sound is what Wolffe has been afraid of, the sound of wolves.

You find new strength in your fear and get to your feet, ready to start running again, but Wolffe doesn’t move with you. You turn to see him still kneeling in the snow, staring out through the trees at nothing. Your confusion turns into worry which then turns into a deeper fear. You step behind him and place your hand on his shoulder for reassurance. He places his hand atop yours and stands to his feet. He knows something you don’t, but you're too afraid to ask him what it is.

“It’s too late,” he says in a hushed tone.

“Too late?” you ask as your voice quivers. “Too late for what?”

Wolffe turns around and pulls you tight against him, wrapping his arms around you and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His cold plastoid armor digs into your clothing. He can hear the fear in your voice and it breaks his heart. This is exactly what he was afraid of, what he didn’t want to happen. The scenario he’s played over and over in his mind since he started out on this mission, the one he so desperately wanted to avoid at all costs, is now inescapable.

Wolffe drags his lips up to your ear and whispers. “Do you trust me?”

You shiver as his hot breath ghosts against the cold shell of your ear. “Always,” you answer.

Wolffe pulls away and plants two firm hands on both of your shoulders. “I need you to listen to me and do everything I say. Understand?”

You look into his eyes and nod your head. “I understand.”

“Don’t move,” Wolffe orders. He shakes your shoulders, like he’s trying to ingrain it in your body. “Don’t move a single inch, no matter what happens.”

You're confused by the instructions, but you trust that Wolffe knows what he’s doing, so you go along with it. “I won’t move. I promise.”

Wolffe nods his head and gives you a small half-smile. “Good girl.”

You watch him carefully, studying his body language, the way he worries his lip and shifts his weight from leg to leg. You can’t help but notice the growing anxiety, so you bring your hand up to cup the side of his face to reassure him. You smooth your hand over his reddened cheek, your fabric glove catching on the rough bristles of the stubble growing in. Wolffe places his hand over yours and leans into the caress, then pulls it away from his face to kiss your palm.

“You know I love you, right?” Wolffe whispers against your hand.

You smile. “I know.”

Wolffe relishes in the simple and soft moment he’s allowed to have with you. He’s not sure what will happen, but he knows that at least in this moment, he has you. He found you, which is what he set out to do. Mission accomplished. But, the promise he made to the general before he left the battalion reverberates in his mind. He swore he would bring you both back safely, and that’s what he still intends to do, no matter the cost.

An eerie silence washes over the area. Every sound of nature is muted by the snow and what’s left in its wake is a hollow peace. However, that silence is pierced by howls and soft steps in the snow. Wolffe closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then turns to face the oncoming enemy. He keeps one hand on you for reassurance, and the other in front of him for his own defense, not that it will do him any good. His blasters won’t help him here either, not against a full pack.

The wolves come into view and surround you and Wolffe in a circle. Their fur coats are light gray and white, perfect camouflage for this place they call home. If it weren’t for their golden eyes and black noses, you wouldn’t even be able to see them. Your breath hitches in your throat at their menacing presence. The wolves are large. Larger than you ever imagined from the books you’ve read, with the tips of their ears easily coming up to your hips. You swallow back your fear.

The pack circles around you and Wolffe, then comes to a stop. Wolffe holds his ground as he waits for their next move, but he doesn’t have to wait long. A large, older looking pure white wolf steps out from the circle. The alpha of the pack, Wolffe assumes. He knows what he needs to do, but even in the face of all of these wolves, he’s reluctant. Without an explanation, he’s not sure how you will react to what he’s about to do, but at this point he doesn’t have a choice.

To your surprise, Wolffe starts shucking off his armor, tossing it about haphazardly until he’s only left in his black bodysuit. You watch him with bewilderment, trying to understand why he’d take his armor off during a situation like this. He’ll freeze to death with so little coverage and be vulnerable to attack. You remember his words about not moving, but you want to reach out and touch him. He must be able to read your thoughts because he turns his head to look at you.

“Remember what I said?” Wolffe asks.

“No moving,” you answer. “But Wolffe–”

Wolffe puts a finger to your lips. “Trust me.”

You nod your head and kiss his finger, earning you a sly grin.

Wolffe turns to face the white wolf and you can’t believe what you’re seeing. Bright yellow lights emanate from Wolffe’s fingertips, his toes, his eyes, and his mouth. Wind blows by your head and swirls around him, obscuring everything but his silhouette. You watch as his body morphs into a smaller form and your breath is stolen in awe. He doesn’t make a sound, even as his body contorts into unfamiliar angles. The wind and light disappear and what’s left behind is a wolf.

“Wolffe?” you ask hesitantly, body shaking from what you just witnessed.

Wolffe cranes his neck around and looks back at you with a single, piercing, golden eye, the other eye is still cybernetic and the scar over it has morphed to fit his new facial figure.

“You’re a… wolf,” you stutter in shock.

You’re stunned. When Wolffe asked you to trust him, you weren’t expecting this. You stare at his new form, a man’s body traded in for dark gray fur across his face and ears that travels down his back, a lighter cream color across his belly and legs, and a black stripe down the middle of his back that stretches to the tip of his fluffy tail. He’s a wolf, there’s no mistake about it. You can’t help but admire his beauty, and also feel a level of terror at the teeth hidden in his mouth.

Quite the show, the Alpha says.

Wolffe turns his head back to look at the Alpha. Not great. Rusty.

The Alpha considers Wolffe for a moment, unsure of what to make of him. Your wolf-speak is less than to be desired.

Wolffe snorts. Been a time.

The Alpha is not impressed with Wolffe and circles around you both, sizing up the situation.

As the Alpha moves around you, you notice that it’s much larger than Wolffe, but it also seems much older. You’re not sure why, but that’s the impression you get. You can see multiple scars across his body, each one a proud win against another wolf, you suppose, just as the clones have scars from their battles. To you, everything is quiet. You can’t hear them communicating, but you watch their body language and hear their growls, which still doesn’t mean much to you.

Wolffe plants his paws firmly into the snow, ears pinned, and snarls. Back!

Easy, pup, the Alpha says as he makes a full circle back to where he started. I’m only observing.

Not pup, Wolffe growls.

No? the Alpha questions. Then what are you?

Alpha, Wolffe answers. Own pack.

The Alpha looks at Wolffe with intrigue. Oh? I would have never guessed. You’re rather small for an alpha.

Wolffe barks at the insult, baring his fangs in an intimidating display.

It works, well, at least on you it does. You flinch at the sudden loud noise.

The Alpha disregards it and looks past Wolffe to you. What is that? A hunting trophy?

Wolffe’s fur bristles at the insinuation and rumbles out a low protective growl. Mate.

Odd choice… the Alpha says as he continues to stare at you with mild interest. He decides to ignore you for the time being. Tell me, alpha, what are the laws that govern?

Wolffe cringes at the question. He knows the answer, it’s written somewhere in the DNA that entangles with his own, but his wolf-speak is poor and he can’t put the words together.

Has your tongue gone still? the Alpha goads. Trespassing in another pack’s territory is an offense punishable by death.

Wolffe retakes his defensive stance and bares his fangs.

The Alpha pauses for a moment before responding. However, I am feeling generous today, young alpha.

Wolffe’s ears twitch.

You have two choices, the Alpha offers. Join our pack at a lower rank and we’ll let your mate go free or give us your mate as tribute and you may go free. The choice is yours.

Wolffe snorts at the two bleak choices and decides to make his own third option. He raises his head and howls loudly towards the sky.

The sound is deafening and you cover your ears to try and muffle it. You’re not sure what they’re doing now, but the tension and uncertainty is making your skin crawl. The golden eyes that stare at you from around the forest make you feel small and afraid. You wish to be able to speak to Wolffe, to get any shred of reassurance that everything will be okay, but he hasn’t said a word to you. Your best guess is that he can’t talk to you, which is the only thing that makes sense right now.

Wolffe finishes his howl and waits for the response.

You want to fight? the Alpha asks. A bold move for one so young and stupid.

Not dumb, Wolffe replies. Protect mine.

The Alpha snorts, then stares into Wolffe’s eyes as he searches his soul. You have the spirit of ages within you, young alpha. My old eyes can still see. The Alpha pauses. I will respect your wishes. If you win, you and your mate will earn safe passage through our land, but if I win, you will join our pack and your mate will perish.

Wolffe takes a deep breath. He has too much to lose not to stay focused. Seal it. Sing the song.

The Alpha lifts his muzzle towards the sky and howls. Wolffe then joins in the howling, letting their wolf-songs mingle and intertwine in the sky like a binding contract.

Promise, Wolffe says. Mate not hurt.

You have my word, the Alpha says. Your mate will not be touched during our fight.

Wolffe nods and takes a fighting stance. The Alpha does the same.

You watch the two wolves with great anticipation as your legs tremble beneath you. You’re still unsure about what’s going on, but whatever it is, you trust Wolffe. At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. That’s what he told you to do and that’s what you have to hold on to. You must have faith and believe that Wolffe will work things out and you can both go home soon. But waiting in silence, without knowing, is slowly killing your nerves. You want to run and escape.

Your thoughts are abruptly interrupted when Wolffe and the Alpha lunge towards each other, fangs bared. A gasp escapes your throat and you have to tell your trembling legs not to move, just like Wolffe told you. The two wolves collide, both going for each other’s necks. You watch in horror as tufts of gray and white fur are flung about into the air. The sounds of growling and snarling fill your ears as they tumble in the snow, one on top of the other and then vice versa.

The Alpha pins Wolffe to the ground and clamps his jaw around Wolffe’s shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain.

“Wolffe!” you yell and take an automatic step towards him, forgetting Wolffe’s order not to move.

A wolf on the sidelines catches your movement and lunges towards you. You scream and fall back onto the ground. Your cry alerts Wolffe and he snaps his head up. With strength unknown to him he kicks the Alpha off of him and leaves his fight to get to your side. He snarls at the wolf and nips at his legs, causing it to retreat back to the circle. Wolffe whips around and looks into your frightened eyes. He brings his nose to your face and gives your cheek a small, gentle lick.

As sweet as the gesture may seem to Wolffe, you wish you could feel anything other than fear. There’s blood on Wolffe’s muzzle and blood on his fur, reminding you of what he is doing.

Wolffe turns his attention back to the Alpha and barks. Liar!

The immature actions of a young pup, the Alpha says. I assure you, he will be punished severely. The Alpha glares toward the younger wolf in his ranks and bares his fangs with a low growl. The younger wolf cowers back with his ears flattened and his tail between his legs. Shall we continue?

Wolffe agrees and the fight recommences as they both tumble through the snow once again. Nipping and biting at each other’s necks, legs, bellies, and backs. Wolffe gets in a few bites, but the Alpha is much bigger and stronger, yielding better results with his bites, which leaves Wolffe’s beautiful gray fur coat marred with blood. He pauses to catch his breath and looks back at you, his strength and reason to fight. Mustering what he can, Wolffe forces himself to continue.

The yelp Wolffe makes when the Alpha sinks his fangs into his neck is unbearable. All you can do is watch and pray to the Maker that Wolffe survives this. You don’t know what started the fight, you don’t know the rules, and you don’t know what will happen to you if Wolffe dies. You shake your head at the macabre thought and focus on Wolffe surviving. You wish you could help him. You wish you could do more than watch as he lies helpless and whimpering in the snow.

Wolffe is out of breath and running out of strength. For a wolf so young, his stamina isn’t at peak performance, but for someone who rarely uses his wolf form, it’s better than he thought it would be. He lays in the snow, chest heaving as he tries to breathe. The bites sting him like fire and slow him down. He’s not sure how much longer he’ll be able to last. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against a seasoned alpha. He may be the leader of the ‘Wolfpack’, but he’s no alpha.

You want to cry. You don’t know how long the fight has been going on, but you’re getting sick of it. You know you’re not supposed to move, but you can still speak. They can’t stop you from cheering him on. Whether he understands your words or not is a gamble you’re willing to take, because you can’t lose him like this. “Wolffe!” you yell. “Wolffe, get up!”

Through his pained haze, Wolffe can hear your voice calling out to him. The sweet sound of his mesh’la, warped by the fear caught in the back of your throat. He knows you’re trying to be strong for him and he finds it endearing. The need to protect you and to protect his unborn child, overrides his pain. He shifts his legs in the snow, trying to get back up, using your voice as a crutch to stand. He rocks himself onto his stomach and hoists himself up onto his shaky legs.

Will protect, Wolffe chokes out between pants as blood drips from his muzzle. Won’t lose. My mate. My pup.

The Alpha watches Wolffe carefully. His own white coat has been stained by blood. Some of it is his but most of it is from Wolffe. He finds the young alpha compelling. His protectiveness over his mate is rivaled by that of many an alpha and he admires him for his strong will. The Alpha can sense it strongly now, the spirit that resides in Wolffe. An ancient spirit from many generations before him. The one that chases the moon at night and howls with his brethren in chorus song.

The Alpha approaches Wolffe and bows. I concede to you, young alpha.

Wolffe heaves in a labored breath, his shaking legs about to buckle underneath him. He’s not sure if this is a trick, but according to the laws that govern, this means he wins.

The Alpha steps closer and Wolffe takes a cautious step back.

Your spirit, the Alpha begins to explain, it’s strong and powerful; ancient as the dancing lights that adorn the heavens. Don’t lose it.

Wolffe stares into the golden eyes of the Alpha and sees his truth. He bows to the Alpha, turns, and limps his way over to you.

You and your mate will have safe passage through our land, the Alpha exclaims to Wolffe and his own pack.

Wolffe turns back to look at the Alpha. Thank you.

And with that, the pack of wolves disappear into the trees as silently as they came. You stare with wide-eyes, then drop to the ground, your legs refusing to bear the load of your body any longer. You don’t know if you should cry, scream, or laugh. Regardless, you and Wolffe are safe, at least you hope you're safe. You startle for a moment when you feel Wolffe’s nose touch you. You look into his tired eyes, trying to read them as best as you can, but you understand nothing.

“Can you turn back?” you ask. “To a human?”

Too weak, he answers, but his voice won’t reach your ears.

You sigh when you get no response. With no way to communicate with Wolffe, you’re not sure what to do. You don’t know where you are and with no comms to contact the battalion, you’re on your own. You stretch out your hand to pet Wolffe’s head, but you recoil it when you get too close, scared he might not be who you think he is. Wolffe sees your hesitation and lifts his head into the palm of your hand, nuzzling it for comfort. You smile and scratch behind his ears.

Overcome with the emotion you are holding in, you throw your arms around Wolffe’s neck and bury your face in his soft fur. “You saved us. Thank you.”

Wolffe wants to melt into your embrace, but a snowflake landing on his nose reminds him of the other situation. Wolffe pulls out of your arms and starts pushing at his armor with his nose, piling it together. You tilt your head at his actions, but when you see the snow start to fall again, you get the idea. You stack Wolffe’s armor neatly and wrap a cord around it so you can tie it to your pack. Wolffe grabs his bag between his teeth and you grab yours, slinging it onto your back.

Wolffe starts limping forward and you walk closely behind him, following his lead through the forest. If anyone can get you home, it’s Wolffe. You soon reach the end of the forest and stare out into the wide advance of nothingness. The snow falls harder and the wind begins to howl. You shiver as the cold air breaches your layers of clothing. Wolffe turns around and stands behind you. He noses at his bucket tied to your pack and you wonder what he wants.

You put your pack down and carefully remove his bucket from the neatly tied package of armor, then hand it to Wolffe, unsure of what he could possibly want with it in that form. It’s not as if it will fit on his head.

If Wolffe could roll his eyes, he would, but instead he pushes his nose against the bucket so it goes back towards you.

You sigh and shake your head, still unsure of what he wants you to do with it.

Put it on! Wolffe growls as he drops his pack from his mouth.

His sudden outburst startles you. “I don’t know what you want me to do!” you snap at him.

Wolffe tries to calm himself. The language barrier is grating on him, so he takes the bucket in his mouth and places his front paws on your knees to gain some height, then haphazardly drops the bucket on top of your head. It sits crooked and looks funny from Wolffe’s vantage point, but it should get the point across.

“Oh,” you realize. “You want me to wear it.”

Wolffe nuzzles his nose against your hand as an affirmation.

You situate his bucket on your head, but it’s too big on you and bobbles around. You think you look ridiculous, but if this is what Wolffe wants then this is what you’re going to do. It’s probably to keep your face from freezing off in the cold, but it could have other uses as well and you just don’t know it.

“How do you see out of this thing?” you ask as you try to walk forward, but the HUD throws you off balance.

Wolffe can’t smile or laugh, but he snorts through his nostrils at your comment. He sees just fine out of it, but then again, it is made for him.

You watch Wolffe’s reaction to your comment and wonder. “Can you understand me?” you ask.

Wolffe nuzzles his nose against your hand again to answer your question.

“We can work with that,” you think out loud. “We need some way to communicate... How about for yes or no questions, touch your nose to my hand for yes and growl for no?”

Wolffe touches his nose to your hand in agreement.

“Well, that was easy,” you breathe.

Actually, none of this is easy. You're several klicks away from your battalion, out in the middle of a snowstorm with a small amount of supplies, and an injured Wolffe who seems to be stuck in a wolf’s body. At least, that’s what you gather from the fact that he is still a wolf and not a human. You don’t have any way to confirm that theory, but you can’t imagine that he would choose to stay a wolf if he had a choice. The words you speak in your mind surprise yourself and you sigh.

Wolffe can smell the storm coming and he nudges your back to push you forward, causing you to stumble.

“Hey!” you turn around and exclaim. “Just because you’re a wolf doesn’t mean you can’t have manners!”

Wolffe snorts, picks his pack back up, and limps past you.

You huff, then hoist your pack onto your back and follow after him.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been walking, but your legs are tired and your body is freezing. The blizzard began to rage not long after you left the forest, and you're both out in the thick of it without much protection. The wind whips around you and threatens to knock you over as it bites your skin through your clothing. Wolffe was smart with making you wear the helmet. There’s no way you would’ve been able to see without it and your ears would have fallen off already.

You have one hand holding the strap of your bag and the other holding onto Wolffe’s tail as he guides you forward through the storm. You don’t know where he’s leading you, but you trust him that it’s towards shelter. Well, that’s what you're hoping for anyway. He, at least, has fur and is made for this type of weather, but, you don’t have a fur coat to keep you warm and your two heavy legs sink further into the deep snow while his four lighter legs sit closer to the surface.

It doesn’t take much longer for you to start staggering, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Wolffe when his tail gets yanked. It hurts, but it’s better than losing you in the storm, so he bears it without complaint. It’s when you let go of his tail that he gets worried. He turns around and looks back to see you laying still in the snow. Panic washes over him and he limps back over to you. He knows that if you stay like this, you’ll get buried in the snow and he can’t let that happen.

Wolffe drops his pack and digs with his paws to get your head out of the snow. He pushes you with his nose to try and get you back up, but you don’t budge. He knows you’re still alive, he can hear your heartbeat, but you still won’t move. He digs around each side of your body as the snow continues to bury your limbs. He grabs onto your outer jacket with his teeth and pulls, but with the weight of the snow you're too heavy for him. He steps back to reassess the situation.

Wolffe paces beside you as he tries to think, then howls in frustration towards the gray sky. Get up, cyare, Wolffe pleads. Please, get up.

He noses at your face, but gets no reaction.

We’re so close, Wolffe says, trying to encourage you to keep moving, like you did for him during the fight, but his voice falls on deaf ears. You have to get up! That’s an order!

He still gets no response. Not even a stir from you.

Don’t make me do this, cyare, Wolffe growls.

He only has one option left and it makes him sick to his stomach. It’s the last thing he wants to do, and he hopes you will forgive him when this is all over, but he’ll do anything to keep you safe. To keep you both safe. He digs out your left arm that has been re-buried by the heavy falling snow and bites down hard.

You jerk at the searing pain in your arm.

The adrenaline in your body starts pumping and you're quickly awoken. You figure you must have fallen asleep since you’re laying in the snow. You look up through the HUD with half-lidded eyes and see Wolffe crouching in front of you, your arm in his mouth. He’s biting you. He’s eating you. You stare at your arm as blood begins to soak through your coat sleeve. You’re scared. Not of the storm, but of Wolffe. He has your arm in his mouth and you're afraid he’ll rip it off.

“Get off me!” you yell hoarsely, scrambling to get up out of the snow and away from him. “I’m not your dinner!”

Wolffe drops your arm before you hurt yourself. I’m sorry.

You stare at him and then your bloody arm in shock and disbelief. “You bit me!”

Regret washes over him at your reaction. I’m so sorry.

“Why?” you ask. You feel heartbroken and confused as to why Wolffe would bite you. Why he would intentionally hurt you. You don’t understand. All of those sweet promises he’s whispered in your ear during moments of passion slip away on the raging winds of the blizzard. He told you he’d never hurt you, but he did. He hurt you and you’re bleeding. “Why would you do that?”

Wolffe drops his tail between his legs and lays himself flat against the snow to seem less intimidating. He wishes he could explain, but he can’t. He never meant for you to misconstrued his intentions so far as to think he would attack you on purpose, or eat you. It’s the worst-case scenario, but he’d rather have you alive and hate him than have you dead and love him. You both need to keep moving, but he lets you settle down before making any more movements.

You lie in the snow as you let the adrenaline run its course. The snow starts to pile around you and in a moment of clarity, you understand why he bit you. If he didn’t wake you, then you would have been buried in the snow and froze to death. It doesn’t make the wound hurt any less, and you’ll never forget what it looked like to have your arm bleeding in his mouth, but you can push past your anger for the moment and move on. You can talk about it later when you’re both safe.

You make an attempt to push yourself up and out of the snow, but struggle. Wolffe gets up and places his muzzle under your other arm, trying to help lift you so you can stand. You get the picture and use him to pull yourself out of the snow. Once you’re up, you lean against Wolffe to help regain your balance before trekking on. Moving is a chore for both of you now. Between his wounds and limp and your frozen and tired body, it’s a miracle you’ve even gotten this far.

When you’re ready to get moving, you grab onto Wolffe’s tail. He picks up his pack, and once again guides you through the blizzard to shelter. It’s not much further before you see a dark shadow appear through the blinding snow. As you get closer, you see the outline of a cabin and breathe a sigh of relief. You knew Wolffe would find shelter, and you’re so thankful that he’s with you. If it weren’t for him, you’d still be back in the woods, waiting to be devoured by wolves.

You approach the cabin and Wolffe scratches at the wooden door, whining for you to open it. You pull the latch and Wolffe drops his pack and runs in before you to be sure it’s safe. The last thing you need is more danger or obnoxious critters. The cabin is dark and cold, but solid, and not too drafty. It will do just fine to wait out the rest of the blizzard. Wolffe circles back from his perimeter search and presses his nose into your hand to let you know it’s safe for you to enter.

With Wolffe’s nose-touch of approval, you pull the door shut against the merciless winds and latch it closed. You drop your pack down, pull out some glow sticks, and the small heat lamp you had in your tent. You crack the glow sticks and place them around the outer areas of the cabin to get some much needed light, then place the small heater in the middle of the room. It won’t throw enough heat for the entire cabin, but it will take the chill out of your bones for the time being.

Wolffe can see without the glow sticks, but he knows you can’t. As you settle in, he does a more thorough reconnaissance and assessment of your situation. There’s a fireplace, some chopped wood, an old table, some broken cabinets with no food in them, and a worn out rug in the middle of the floor. It’s not much, but it’s enough. More than enough, actually. Wolffe turns when he hears you strike a match to light the fireplace. The small fire casts a warm orange glow in the room.

Finally able to relax, you take Wolffe’s bucket off and place it on the table alongside his armor. You pull your coat and gloves off, and blow into your hands to warm them up. It will take a little for the fire to heat the entire cabin. You look over at Wolffe and see the blood dripping from his shoulder. You’re not sure how he’s still standing, but you need to get that wound taken care of before it becomes infected. You grab the medpack from your pack and walk over to the fire.

“Come here,” you call as you sit crisscross on the rug and pat the area next to you.

Wolffe, absolutely exhausted, slowly limps over and lies down on the carpet beside you. He places his muzzle on your left leg and you run a hand across his head. He closes his eyes. You gently move your hand down to touch the area where his shoulder is bleeding and he whines. You frown, then grab the bacta and start applying it. Wolffe kicks out his hind leg at the pain, but he stays still for you. Finally, you wrap the wound in bandages, then take care of the other bites.

Once you’re done with Wolffe’s wounds, you move onto your own. You pull the sleeve up on your left arm, and wince as the movement opens the scabs that are stuck to the fabric.

Wolffe picks his head up off your leg when he hears your pain. He looks for the source and sees the puncture marks of his teeth on your arm. His stomach drops. He gave you that wound. It’s his fault that you’re bleeding and he wishes he could fix it. If only he had the strength to change back, he could bandage your wound, instead of forcing you to do it yourself. In an effort to help, he leans forward and licks at your wound, but you recoil and reflexively whack his nose.

“Ow!” you exclaim. “That hurts!”

Wolffe whines and lowers his head to rest on the rug between his front legs. He didn’t mean to hurt you even more. He just wanted to help. I’m sorry, cyare.

You look at how sad he is and sigh. “I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

Wolffe remains still, but lifts his eyes to look up at you.

You meet his gaze and offer him a sad smile. You can never stay mad at Wolffe for long, even if he did bite you. Usually you like it when he bites you, but not when his teeth are as sharp as a vibro-blade. Besides, there’s no use in staying angry at him, not when he’s already saved your life three times in one day. You pat his head and give him a small scratch behind his ear, which seems to perk him up a little. “Good boy.”

Getting back to the task at hand, you apply the bacta to your wound and wrap it in a bandage. It’s not the best job you’ve ever done, but you did it with one hand, so you feel somewhat proud of yourself. Now that the wounds have been taken care of, you move onto food and water. You get up from the floor and rifle through Wolffe’s pack. You grab the canteens and rations from it, since you used your supply back in the forest, and sit back down next to Wolffe.

You reach out to hand one of the canteens to Wolffe, then stop when you remember he can’t drink out of it like a person. You sigh, stand back up, and walk over to the kitchen area past the old wooden table. There’s no food in the cabinets, but there has to be a bowl you can use, and it doesn’t take long for you to find one. You wipe it out with your shirt and bring it back to where you were sitting, then place it in front of Wolffe’s nose and pour the canteen of water into it.

Wolffe continues to lie on the floor, but picks his head up to lap at the water in the bowl. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until the first droplets hit his tongue and he eagerly drinks the rest of the bowl, being careful not to spill any of the precious resource. When you try to refill the bowl with more water, Wolffe stops you. He doesn’t need it as much as you do, and if push comes to shove, it’s easier for him to go find water in his wolf form, than it is for you as a human.

Once you’ve had your fill of water, you open up the ration pack and toss one of the bars to Wolffe. He catches it mid-flight in his mouth and eats the entire bar in one bite. You’re a little surprised, but you’re not sure what you were expecting, considering the size of his mouth and what wolves actually eat for sustenance. You chuckle. “Well, those aren’t going to last long.”

When you try to give Wolffe another ration bar, he does the same thing he did with the canteen of water and declines it. He intentionally doesn’t catch it, and the second bar comically bounces off of his head and onto the ground. Wolffe gently picks the ration bar up in his mouth and drops it in your lap for you to eat. He can survive on the one ration bar for a while. It’s more important to him that you get your proper nutrients to help keep you and the little one healthy and safe.

You pick up the ration bar and cringe in disgust that it has some of his wolf-saliva on it. But, then again, it can’t be the worst bodily fluid of Wolffe’s you’ve ever put in your mouth, so you eat it without complaint and try not to think about it too much.

After you finish the ration bar, you and Wolffe sit in silence for a while and just listen to the crackling fire in front of you and the howling blizzard outside. It’s peaceful, in a sort of sense, and almost comforting. You look over at Wolffe and wonder if he’s fallen asleep. He has his front paws crossed with his head resting on top of them and his eyes are closed. You look back over at the fire and yawn, thinking it’s best for you to get some sleep as well. You’re exhausted.

You get up off the floor, walk over to the table, grab the blanket from your pack, and sit back down next to Wolffe. You look over at him and his eyes are open and staring at you. You shake your head at his alertness. Not much gets past him. You stretch your arms out over your head, then lay the blanket on your body. You rest your head on the hard floor, which quickly becomes uncomfortable, and you know you’ll wake up with a crick in your neck if you try to sleep like this.

You sit up and look at Wolffe, who is still watching you. “Can I…” you fidget with the edge of the blanket. “Can I lay on you?”

Wolffe picks his head up and beats his tail against the wooden floor.

You giggle at his response. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Wolffe changes his position and lies out flat on his side with his legs outstretched towards the fire. He doesn’t care what position he sleeps in, because his fur works as a buffer against even the hardest of surfaces. He’ll gladly be your pillow and he’s happy to oblige you. You're still his cyare, even when he’s in his wolf form. The wolf form changes nothing about how he feels about you or his devotion and duty to protect you. He may be in a wolf’s body, but his heart is his own.

You situate yourself between Wolffe’s legs and lay your head on his side, being careful not to disturb any of the bandages. His body is warm and his fur is soft. You can feel him breathing steadily as his chest rises and falls, and the sound of his heartbeat is so similar to his human form that when you close your eyes, you can imagine it’s him you’re laying against. You nuzzle your cheek against Wolffe’s soft fur and let yourself drift off to sleep, safe by his side.

When you wake up, you feel a slight chill and notice the fire has died down. You need to get up to put more logs on it to stay warm, but you don’t want to move. You lazily rub your face against Wolffe, but it doesn’t feel right. There’s no fur. You pick your head up and look at Wolffe, but he’s no longer a wolf, he’s human. He’s also completely naked. Realizing that he’s going to freeze to death being exposed like that, you lay your blanket on top of him and get up to rekindle the fire.

You're glad he’s back to normal. You weren’t sure how long he was going to be a wolf, or if he was ever going to change back into the man you know, but you feel relieved now. You carefully lift the blanket to check the bandages, and you can see his injuries better now without the fur, and they look good. Nothing is infected, but the bandage on his shoulder needs to be changed. You run your fingers through his hair, then warm yourself by the fire and wait for him to wake up.

It’s not much longer before Wolffe begins to stir and shift uncomfortably on the hard wooden floor. You smile as you hear the familiar grunt he makes when he wakes up from a good night’s sleep and you bask in the sound of the deep voice you love so much. You turn from the fire to look at him, and you see him try to push himself up from the floor and onto all fours. You scoot across the rug and gently push him back down before he reopens the wound on his shoulder.

“Cyare,” Wolffe says, his voice rough with sleep. He tries to touch his nose to you, but he misses by several inches, not realizing that he’s back to his human form.

“It’s me,” you giggle.

“You can understand me?” Wolffe asks in confusion.

“You’re you again,” you explain as you grab his hand and touch it to his face. “See? No fur.”

Wolffe grunts like he has a hangover and places a hand against his throbbing head. “Must have changed back in my sleep.”

“Yeah, about that…” you say, trying to segue into the obvious.

Wolffe slowly sits up, the blanket falling down around his waist. “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” you counter while sitting down next to him. “The blizzard hasn’t let up.”

Wolffe sighs. He knew this conversation was coming and he thought of several ways to explain it to you without it sounding like some bizarre folktale, but he’d rather not. “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me,” you say with folded arms.

A shiver runs up Wolffe’s spine and he realizes he’s naked. “Can I have my blacks first?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” you say before getting up and grabbing the spare set of blacks Wolffe put in his pack, then returning to hand them to him. “Sorry about that.”

Wolffe chuckles and grabs his blacks from your hands. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

Wolffe quickly puts his blacks on and melts into the comfort of the tight bodysuit against his bare skin. He sits back down next to you and immediately pulls you into his lap, your back against his chest, and wraps his arms around your stomach while burrowing his face in your neck. He peppers your neck with soft kisses, making you smile. His kisses become longer, more focused, and he trails them from your neck down to your shoulder as his hands creep under your shirt.

“Wolffe,” you say knowingly.

“Hm?” he mumbles into your neck.

“You’re stalling,” you say as you remove his hands from under your shirt.

Wolffe grunts at your perceptiveness. He really thought he could make you forget by working you up, but he was dead wrong. You want to know, and he knows you well enough that you won’t let it go until you have an answer. With a heavy sigh, he stops his attack of kisses and shuffles you around in his lap so you’re facing him. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes,” you answer. “Tell me everything.”

Wolffe sighs and begins his recount of the events.

“It was near the beginning of the war. My first campaign after losing my battalion and my eye. I was at my lowest point back then.”

Your shoulders slump and eyes soften at his words.

“During the campaign I got separated from the battalion, on a world similar to this one, and I found myself cold and alone on the side of a snowy mountain, staring up at the night sky and waiting to die. Thought I was going to.”

You lean your head on his shoulder as you continue to listen.

“Then I saw these green and blue lights appear out of nowhere and dance across the black sky, right over my head. They were beautiful. As I stared up at the lights, I saw this white figure jumping down from them like it was a staircase or something. As it got closer, it kinda looked like a wolf, but it was see-through and wispy-like. I’d never seen something like that before.”

You chuckle at Wolffe’s descriptions.

“You find it funny, but I thought I was dying and seeing things. So, the wispy-wolf-looking thing came over to me, and I mean it stood right next to me, and started talking to me. It said I had a ‘strong heart’ and a ‘wise mind’, or something like that, and then it asked me if I wanted to live. I actually thought about saying no, but I ended up saying yes for whatever reason.”

You grab onto Wolffe tightly, and he rubs your back to soothe you.

“Then it spoke again and said it was an ancient wolf-spirit that travels across the night sky, waiting for someone worthy who can tether it back to the ground, or something like that. It didn’t make much sense to me, but I agreed. It was better than dying on that mountainside. Then that thing walked right inside of me and I nearly pissed myself.”

You snort.

“That was my first transformation into an actual wolf. Once I was in the wolf form, I could smell and see and sense all kinds of things. That’s how I found my way back to the battalion. The general was the only one who knew it was me, through the force I guess, and we never told anyone. It took a little to figure out how to transform back, but the wolf-spirit’s been inside me ever since.”

“You can’t get rid of it?” you ask. “Just out of curiosity.”

“Not that I know of,” Wolffe shrugs. “It’ll probably leave me when I die, and go back up into the dancing lights.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you say.

Wolffe tilts his head to the side. “It does?”

“Well, yeah,” you answer.

“So, you believe me?” Wolffe asks.

“Of course,” you say with a small laugh. “There’s no reason not to. Besides, there’s lots of things in this galaxy that we don’t know about, and wolf spirits now aren’t one of them.”

Wolffe gives you a crooked smile and places his forehead against yours. “I don’t deserve you.”

You lean into the embrace and sigh, but your happy moment is interrupted by your growling stomach.

“Hungry?” Wolffe asks.

“A little,” you answer while getting off his lap.

You walk over to the table and pull out the last package of rations from Wolffe’s pack. You open the package and put one of the bars in your mouth, then throw the other one to Wolffe. He catches it, but he doesn’t eat it.

“You can have mine,” Wolffe says.

You cross your arms. “You need to eat.”

“I can wait,” he says.

“You're injured,” you argue. “You need energy to recover.”

“I have reserves,” he retorts.

“Wolffe,” you huff. “I’m not arguing with you. Eat the bar.”

“I said, no,” he says sternly.

“Fine,” you say as you put your coat on. “Then I’ll go find you something to eat.”

Wolffe gets up from the floor and grabs your arm. “You’re not going anywhere.”

You give Wolffe an incredulous look, then yank your arm back. “What is your problem all of a sudden?”

“I’ll go out and find us some food,” he says.

“You’re injured!” you exclaim. “If you transform back into a wolf, you’re going to break open your wound!”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he says.

“Well, I’m not,” you huff and start walking towards the cabin door.

Wolffe stands in front of it with his arms crossed. “You’re staying in this cabin and that’s an order.”

“Wolffe, I swear to the Maker, you can’t just pull rank on me whenever it suits you!” you exclaim.

“Too bad,” he says.

You fume and try to push past him. “Get out of my way!”

Wolffe groans. “Stop fighting me!”

“Stop telling me what to do!” you yell.

Wolffe grabs your shoulders and shakes you. “What do I have to do, huh?” he asks. “Tie you up?”

“Maybe,” you sneer.

“Why can’t you just listen to me?!” he exclaims.

“Because,” you begin, “you’re not making the best decision for the two of us!”

Wolffe’s patience snaps. “Only because I’m trying to make the best decision for the three of us!”

You pause, taken aback by his choice of words. “Three?”

Wolffe sighs and leans his head back against the door, kicking himself for saying the one thing he didn’t want to say.

“Wolffe,” you ask slowly. “What do you mean by three?”

Wolffe wipes his hand across his face and looks at your confused expression. “You’re pregnant.”

You gasp in shock. “What– How– When– How do you know that?”

Wolffe rubs the back of his neck. “It started out as more than a hunch, but when I transformed into a wolf, I knew for sure because I could hear its heartbeat.”

You place a hand on your stomach and stagger backwards, looking for a place to sit as you try to process this life-changing information.

Wolffe catches you and guides you to one of the chairs by the table. He kneels down in front of you and takes your hands in his. “I wasn’t going to say anything until you figured it out on your own. I’m sorry. It would’ve been difficult to explain.”

You stare at Wolffe, still in disbelief. “I’m pregnant?”

Wolffe nods his head. “Yeah.”

“I’m pregnant,” you say as you continue to stare at Wolffe.

Wolffe isn’t sure what to do, so he just stays still and waits for you to make the next move.

Suddenly, the lightbulb turns on in your head. “That’s why you gave me your rations and why you didn’t want me to leave.”

Wolffe lets his shoulders relax as you finally understand. “Exactly,” he sighs. “I was worried about the baby.”

You start to laugh and Wolffe raises his eyebrow in confusion. You throw your arms around Wolffe’s neck and squish yourself against him tightly. He pulls you from the chair to sit in his lap and holds you there for as long as you will let him. He rubs your back with his hands and soothes you with soft kisses along your neck.

“Will you let me take care of you now?” he whispers.

“Yeah,” you mumble.

Wolffe gives you one last big squeeze, then hoists you up to carry you over to the rug near the fire. He places you down gently on the rug and wraps you up in the blanket, then gives you a small kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Promise?” you ask.

“Promise,” he answers.

Wolffe removes his blacks, since it’s the only pair he has and he doesn’t want to ruin them, then hands them to you. “Here, they should smell like me now.”

You smile, take them from him, and breathe in his calming scent.

Wolffe leaves the cabin, making sure the door latches securely behind him, then transforms into a wolf so he can find some food. His shoulder wound still hurts, but he can walk on it without much of a limp now, which is fine for him. Even if it was broken, he would still go out and find you food. The urge to protect and provide is so much stronger now that he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re carrying his child. He would do anything to keep you both safe.

Now that you’ve settled down and have time to think, you feel bad for being angry and argumentative with Wolffe. Everything he’s done for you since he first found you in the forest has been to protect you and the baby you didn’t even know about. You can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it has been for him to keep that secret for so many weeks. You’re body hasn’t changed, so it never even occurred to you that you could be pregnant, but he knew.

You wait diligently in front of the fire for Wolffe to return, wishing you had a data-pad to distract yourself with, or even a deck of cards, or anything. Waiting in the quiet is making you fidget out of boredom, and if you’re not careful, you’ll fidget your fingernails right off your fingers. You need something busy yourself with, so you scan around the cabin to try and find inspiration. Then you realize that whatever food Wolffe brings back with him is going to need to be cooked. Bingo.

You throw Wolffe’s top blacks over your head, so you don’t have to carry the blanket around, and you walk over to the kitchen portion of the room. You go through all of the broken cabinets and drawers until you find something to cook in. You have a fire, but throwing some dead carcass on an open flame makes your stomach churn. Eventually, you find a large pan hidden away in a corner. It’s a little dusty, but it’ll do. You clean it off, then set it near the fire to preheat.

Satisfied with your preparations, you sit back down onto the rug and continue to wait for Wolffe. Your wait isn’t much longer before Wolffe returns from his hunt, but then again, without a chronometer, you can’t tell how long he’s actually been gone. The latch on the cabin door opens, then closes abruptly, and you smile while stoking the fire. You hear him take a few steps into the cabin as the floor creaks beneath his weight, but the steps are followed by a loud thud.

You whip around to see Wolffe lying on the ground, his fresh kill next to him. You rush over to check and make sure he’s still breathing, and he is. Thank the Maker. His body is cold from exposure, which makes sense, but you notice his breathing is labored and he’s sweating. You put your hand to his forehead and it’s hot. He has a fever. You curse under your breath, and check under the bandage on his shoulder. It’s red around the edges, just what you were afraid of.

“Wolffe,” you say. “I need you to get up for me.”

Wolffe groans.

“Come on,” you say while putting his arm around your shoulder. “You’re too heavy for me. I need you to help me.”

Wolffe musters what he can and you do your best to drag him over to the rug by the fire. His body is cold, and you need to warm him up so he has a chance to fight the infection. You lay him down on the rug and work to get his blacks on. It’s a struggle, and you wish he would’ve stayed in his wolf form since it came with its own fur coat, but you guess it’s better if he can talk to you. You cover him with the blanket, then focus on cleaning and redressing his shoulder.

Once you get Wolffe situated, you turn your attention to the dead creature at the door. You're not completely sure how to turn it into dinner, so you just throw it into the pan next to the fire and hope for the best. It’s better than starving, but you wish you could make it into soup to help Wolffe. You think for a moment, then get an idea. You grab snow from outside and use it to fill the pan. Then take the electrolyte package from the medpack and dump it in the pan too.

You look at your concoction brewing by the fire and narrow your eyes. “That’s going to taste awful.”

“Mesh’la,” Wolffe calls in between pants.

You turn your attention away from the pan and back to Wolffe, then scoot over to him. “I’m here.”

“Sorry,” he breathes.

You smile and wipe his forehead with your sleeve. “Don’t be. You took good care of me, of us. Now it’s my turn.”

Wolffe doesn’t respond, but you know he would if he could. What’s important now is that he gets rest.

After a little while, you check on the weird soup you’re trying to make and see that the creature is thoroughly cooked, at least, you think it’s thoroughly cooked. You taste some of the ‘broth’ and you’re not impressed, but at least it has salt and nutrients in it. You scoop up the broth into one of the bowls you found and bring it over to Wolffe. You situate yourself behind him so he can sit up against you and you can help him drink it. He fights you on it, but you eventually win.

Once you’re both fed, you throw more logs on the fire and settle in on the rug next to Wolffe. He’s shivering from his fever, so you snuggle up to him to try and keep both of you warm. It’s not ideal for you, but you know Wolffe would try to give you the blanket and his blacks if he knew you were cold, and you can’t let him do that, not when he’s sick. With Wolffe heating your back and the fire heating your front, you let your mind slow down and drift off to sleep.

The next two rotations, you guess, are similar. Wolffe’s fever continues as he fights the shoulder infection and the blizzard still rages on outside. You wonder if it’ll ever stop. The only good thing about the cold is that you can leave the leftovers outside and defrost them by the fire when you need them. Lucky for you, Wolffe brought back a decent sized creature that you’ve been able to ration out. But, the food reserves are dwindling, and neither of you will survive on nothing.

Finally, on the third rotation, you think, Wolffe’s fever breaks and his infection looks much better. He continually apologizes to you for getting sick, but he knew that if he didn’t bring back food, and he fell ill, you both would have been in trouble. You, of course, tell him not to worry about it and that you’re glad he came back safely. He saved your life, again, and you couldn’t be more grateful. Actually, he saved both you and your baby’s life, which makes you love him even more.

Not long afterwards, you both notice a silence. It’s still dark outside, but there’s a certain sound missing. The sound of the howling winds. You walk over to the cabin door, with Wolffe right behind you, and you open it to see nothing but a white ground and a black sky. The storm is over. You smile and lean back against Wolffe’s chest in relief. Now you can leave and head towards the rendezvous point to meet up with the battalion. It won’t be difficult with Wolffe leading the way.

As you stare out into the darkness, hot puffs of breath mingling into the cold night air, the sky lights up with green and blue colored streaks. Your mouth gapes and your eyes widen at the magical sight. It’s just like Wolffe described, dancing lights in the night sky. Wolffe wraps an arm around you and pulls you close against him and smiles. He’s happy you get to see them too. Then he hears the spirit within him howl towards the dancing lights above and he feels complete.

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superectojazzmage · 10 months

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Watched the Nimona movie last night. Review I guess. It was pretty damn good. Definitely would’ve probably been regarded as Blue Sky’s magnum opus if they’d gotten to release it instead of being fucked over by Disney. Very cute, very funny, very powerful in the right moments. A thing that stuck out to me is that it’s really only an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word. It takes the core premise and beats of the comic but is functionally an entirely different kind of story that does its own thing. And given that ND Stevenson was heavily involved in production, I suspect that was intentional.

The comic was much darker and more downbeat in a lot of ways, plus it was significantly longer and thus could afford to be slower paced. But more than that, it was a lot more meaty in terms of themes and scope. The whole “LGBT allegory” element was there, but it wasn’t the sole focus, the comic was a story about a lot of different things; not just an LGBT experience, but also discussion of fantasy genre tropes and clichés, criticism of other fantasy deconstructions, character study, exploring what it means to be a hero or villain, critique of the glorification of crime and cruelty in underprivileged communities, corruption in governments, peer pressure, the senseless and self-perpetuating nature of violence, the worthlessness of revenge, etc.. And above all that, it was a story about trauma and people’s responses to it, with Ballister representing people who actually deal with their problems and move on while Nimona represented people who let their mistakes and suffering and grief consume their identity, or worse, use it as an excuse to indulge their worst qualities and take out their feelings on everyone around them.

The movie, by contrast, has a much more narrow focus. The LGBT allegory is front and center and basically the entire focal point of the movie, aside from a spattering of themes about the danger of zealotry and rigid fundamentalist thinking. This gives the movie a much tighter narrative and pacing that suits its inherently shorter runtime, but also leads to a ton of changes to the story either to convey a different kind of message or just work better in a different medium. Most obviously in how Nimona is vastly more sympathetic in the movie and essentially really is the silly gremlin the comic fakes you out into thinking she is, scrapping the comic’s twist that she was a genuinely bad person who was completely serious about wanting to be a villain, caring nothing for the lives she destroyed with her behavior and idolizing Ballister because she thought he was the same as her and would thus tell her what she wanted to hear (i.e., that she was justified in killing and destroying everything around her in the name of getting even). And in the changes to the Institution’s history and nature. And all sorts of other things.

All in all, I feel if you go in comparing and contrasting the movie and the comic, arguing which changes are for the better or worse, you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment in either direction because they’re two different beasts and it’s like comparing apples and oranges. So keep that in mind if you’re a fan of the comic watching the movie or a fan of the movie wanting to look into the comic. I think ultimately I still like the comic better, but that’s purely my personal opinion and there’s plenty that I think the movie did better.

Some other observations:

Riz Ahmed my beloved, thank you Mr. Stevenson for this perfect casting. Literally perfect for Ballister.

Acting in general was very good. You can tell this was a passion project for a lot of people, not just Stevenson.

Only two changes that are objectively bad are Ambrosius losing his awesome Van Halen hairdo and changing Ballister’s last name — Blackheart is a way cooler name than Boldheart and it’s a pointless change, one that I’d argue even hurts the narrative since it makes it too obvious that Ballister isn’t actually a bad guy.

The animation is really great with fantastic expressions, stylish movement, and wonderful aesthetics that perfectly suit the story, but there’s times where it feels a little off. But there are parts where it looks less “movie” and more “cheap mid-2000s CGI-and-Flash cartoon show from France”.

The humor can be a hit and miss, in a “going through the motions of a Hollywood animated comedy for kids” way. The movie excels when it’s either imitating the comic’s Old Internet sense of humor or going hard on the drama, but there’s bits where it seemingly slams on the brakes to do Illumination-esque Twitter humor and those bits definitely throw off the vibe.

Having an actual straight up attempted suicide in the climax was shockingly ballsy. I genuinely can’t believe they went there, but I’m glad they did because the film wouldn’t have felt nearly as raw without it.

I don’t know how they managed to make the Director even more of an asshole than in the comics, but they did.

#nimona #nimona film #nd stevenson #ballister boldheart #ballister blackheart #ambrosius goldenloin #movie review #animated movies #movies #films #comic books #dc comics #webcomic #web comics #indie comics #netflix #blue sky studios #lgbt film #lgbt fantasy

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lazuliquetzal · 1 year

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Comedy Is A Lie: I’m Going To Explain The Joke And It’s Going To Make Everything Worse

A buddy asked me why I cut a good joke from one of my fics and my immediate answer was “it killed the tension,” which, upon reflection, is a pathetic answer that is mostly inaccurate and does not even come CLOSE to how much thought I put into comedy in my writing. So I guess I’m going to write this out and excise the demon of over-explanation.

Part The First: What Is Funny

The biggest thing I try and keep in mind when writing editing comedy (and anything, really, but especially for comedy) is rhythm. Lots of parts to rhythm! Most obvious is the word-to-word/sentence-to-sentence flow. Timing is a really important aspect of verbal comedy, which is why performance is a good medium to use. You get to control the delivery of every sentence and the spaces in between. But when you’re writing, you have significantly less control over how a reader will interpret the rhythm: all you can do is word your sentences as best as you can and give them rhythm cues via punctuation. (This is why I use so many em dashes and commas… I'm working on that…)

The other part to rhythm is on a more macro scale. There are jokes that will roll along with the flow of a story. For me, these are jokes that don't deviate from the context of the scene too much. They connect one subject to the next, or they build off of each other (a ‘yes, and’ sequence, for example). Alternatively, the joke is delivered in a really understated way. Like passing off something objectively batshit as status quo. Either way, they flow!

Then there are jokes that will halt a scene in its tracks. These are jokes that recontextualize a situation, or make a particularly large leap from the current topic. Or, you've been setting up for this punchline for a while and this joke is payoff. Or the joke is just really, really funny. These are the kind of jokes where you need to give the characters (or the reader) a beat to process them. Sometimes. We’ll get back to that.

Part the Second: How Is Funny

So the point of all that rhythm stuff is that comedy has a flow! If every line is a witty one-liner, none of the lines are witty one-liners! If every joke is a one-hit-KO, you have left your reader unconscious. Basically, if you are constantly being #Funny, you become repetitive and predictable, and that is the death of tension (and humor is a tension-driven element).

One way to think of comedic pacing is setup (AKA building tension) and punchline (AKA payoff). It’s a balancing act: the more you build up tension, the more satisfying the payoff is going to be, but if you spend too long building up, you start dragging. You want the reader to think, “I can’t wait for the punchline!” and not, “oh my god, PLEASE get to the punchline already.”

Fun way to make the tension last longer is to put all those flow-y connector jokes along the way. The reader’s anticipating the Joke, so by giving them little jokes, it meets their expectations in little ways so that they don’t get too antsy.

Hey, what’s tension, you ask?

Part The Third: Why Is Funny

When I read a book, there are two emotions that get me to turn the page:

I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and I’m curious!

I know X is going to happen, and I’m anticipating it!

That’s tension. (Something something semantics—I’ve never taken a creative writing class, I don’t have a vocabulary)

You can have the calmest, low-stakes fluffiest fic in the world but as long as your readers are experiencing either curiosity or anticipation, Congrats! You have tension! I, however, like putting readers on fast-paced rollercoasters, so that’s the lens through which I’m tackling this section, which is: how do I use jokes in a story structure context? What purpose does a clown serve?

I mentioned earlier that some jokes are bricks to the face: they demand to be processed. Most of the time, I put high-impact jokes in places where I need the story to “reset” in a way: force a beat so the reader can process both the joke and the plot. That’s using humor to release tension. Literally. Laughter relieves stress.

But! You can also use those jokes to make the tension even worse! If you drop a bomb and immediately press forward, no processing allowed, you get stressful comedy. You want to laugh, but also a bunch of other stuff is happening and it feels kind of rude to laugh, so you get stressed. Sometimes humor can undermine a climactic moment, but if you use the right joke in the right spot you create shrimp emotions. If you’ve read DotF ch8 you know what I’m talking about.

Jokes also just make for good plot points? A lot of jokes are built on recontextualization. Everybody loves a good twist/reversal/surprise in a plot. Just make a joke and re-frame it, and bam! You’ve plotted! (Everything I’ve ever written started off as a joke.)

Wait, What Was The Question?

Why did I cut the joke? It was a waste of a brick to the face. It was too referential, it required the audience to know/agree with something completely unrelated to the story, it didn’t build upon what I already established. It ruined the rhythm.

I need to emphasize that, despite all my Thoughts on this, the way I appraise my jokes is 80% vibe-based. I probably could have kept the joke, and it would have been totally fine. But I would know. I would know that my intended rhythm is broken… it would haunt me until the end of time…

#this isn't even getting onto building a Comedic Cast or nailing down a Comedic Characterization or Comedy-As-Action or Varying Your Humor #I'M JUST SAYING #my writing tends toward stupid crack comedy but i take my crack comedy extremely seriously #the short rule is that if it's funny it's valid #the long rule is that the more effort you put into something the funnier it becomes #it's about PURPOSE #writing #lazuli writes #comedy #lazuli talks

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jjngkook7 · 29 days

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Motives (1)

NCT Jaehyun X Reader / Demon AU / Angst, Fluff (?), Suggestive Smut

Summary: You didn’t know how good you had it until your new job suddenly takes you far away from home. Desperate to settle into your new life, you turn to an eccentric medium who introduces you to an entity named Jaehyun. He offers you three wishes, but do you dare make a deal with the devil? ***Please ignore the mantra later. I literally copied and pasted their Favourite lyric sorry if its CRINGE****

“Goodnight! Love you!” you force the biggest smile you can as you wave to your best friend over facetime.

“Goodnight!” Karina blows you a kiss and the call ends.

A heavy sigh escapes your lips as you drop your head onto your pillow. Your phone lays still on your stomach and you’re tempted to just throw it across your room until it shatters into a million pieces. Seeing your loved ones posting little life updates on social media used to warm your heart but is now the reason you cry yourself to sleep. Facetime calls with your friends went from every other day to every other week because there was really nothing to update them on besides work and how much you missed them. Besides, you didn’t want to burden your friends with the knowledge of how truly alone you felt. You took a peek at the time and let out another sigh when you realized that if you wanted to get through the day tomorrow, you had to sleep now.

As a creature of habit, the prospect of relocating to a new city for work was almost off the table. You’d be a plane ride away from everything and everyone once knew. Your new employer gave you a week to decide and for the whole week, you contemplated long and hard. Your family and friends were completely supportive of your move for good reason: you get to explore a new place, expand your view on the world and make new connections. Alongside the possibility of growing as an individual, the job also promised a pay raise and a better role. All these great reasons eventually led you to make the move. After two months, your bank account was a little bigger, your role in the company was a little better and your mental health was a little worse. The city you moved to was the complete opposite of where you came from. First, this place was significantly smaller than the bustling city you grew up in and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Second, a fun time was going to the only plaza in the middle of town to buy knick knacks for your home. Finally, it was quiet and actually quite peaceful. The citizens here really cared about preserving the environment as much as possible, so highways were few to none and many people chose to walk or bike. You appreciated how much closer the mountains looked and how much cleaner the air smelled but there was no one to appreciate the serenity with. For a creature of habit, you were kind of pleased with the limited amount of restaurants and shops to choose from but once again, it was hard to appreciate these things without someone to share it with. Your growing loneliness made this small city seem so much larger than it was.

“Tomorrow will be a better day,” a mantra you whispered every night before bed in hopes to manifest for the next day.

__________________________________

A shiver ran down your spine as a cold breeze blew past. You hugged your scarf closer to your face and quickened your pace in order to get home faster. Autumn settled a little too quickly for your liking. The weather was constantly gloomy and with your city being so close to the mountains, it was already below freezing. In the past few weeks, you worked really hard to remain grateful and positive to get through the day. You put in a lot of effort to make your place feel like home and you tried to foster some sort of relationship with your coworkers. Your coworkers were a lot older than you but hearing them talk about their family and weekend activities was somewhat comforting to hear about during lunch breaks. However, with the days getting shorter and the weather getting worse, you worried that you would slip back into old habits.

As you kept your head down to bury as much of your face in the warmth of your scarf, you noticed a weird tune playing a couple feet in front of you. Curious about the source, you first noticed neon pink lights dancing on the sidewalk as you lifted your head. Your eyes went towards a store front you never saw before despite walking down the same sidewalk to get home for almost three months. A flashing pink palm with the words “PSYCHIC” in the middle decorates the mysterious storefront. You inspected the shop a little more and noticed that it was only twenty dollars to get a full reading. You scoffed, figuring that this store was a scam just like every other pseudoscience out there and averted your gaze. As you continued down the block, you thought about what you were going to do this weekend and felt an all too familiar ache in your heart. There was no one to see, no where you wanted to go and nothing you really wanted to do. Your pace slowed down as you thought about your sad weekend plans. Your cold hands formed into fists in your jacket pocket as you tried to push the intrusive thoughts about how pathetic and lonely you were. I worked way too hard to keep feeling like shit. You felt your body go backwards until you were in front of the psychic store again. Maybe they can tell me what to do this weekend.

You almost gasped at how much colder the store was inside compared to outside which was odd considering how cozy it was decorated. The lights were dim creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere. A large, fuzzy white rug sat in the middle of the store with two green sofas on top. On the side was a large wooden bookshelf with various texts, trinkets and a diffuser spraying out what seemed to be an essential oil of some sort. You peered around the store and noticed that you were the only person inside. As you looked around more, you noticed a closed door in the back leading to what you assumed was the staff room. Continuing your guessing games, you wondered if the staff couldn’t hear you come in. You walked over to the wooden bookshelf and skimmed through the spines. There were lots of titles you expected in a store such as this like, “Speaking With the Other World” and “Supernatural Beings”. What caught your eye was a large crystal ball with what looked like clouds trapped in the sphere. It seemed like the closer you looked inside, the bigger the clouds got. You reached out your hand to hold the ball but quickly retreated when you suddenly felt the hairs on your body stand. You turned around, swearing you felt someone behind you but found no one else in the store. Wanting to suddenly leave, you turned on your heels and headed towards the front door.

“I’m sorry, were you waiting long?” a voice asked from behind.

You thought your soul had escaped from your body from how hard you jumped. You quickly turned to face whoever spoke.

“Did I scare you? I’m so sorry!”

You couldn’t help the racing of your heart as you scanned around the room. Where could this person have come from? You looked towards the back door and noticed that it was still closed. Were you too engrossed in that stupid crystal ball to hear them open and close the door? Your eyes went back towards the man standing in front of you. He looked almost as worried as you with his brows furrowed and his hands placed in front of him. His bangs were long, almost covering his eyes and he had little beauty marks scattered around his face.

“I just-I didn’t hear you,” you stammered, embarrassed by your reaction, “sorry I just-I thought-“

“I think we both need to calm down,” he laughed and reached out his hands towards you, “I’m Haechan! I will be the one to do your reading if you’re interested.”

You shook his hand and felt a jolt run through your arm, he was ice cold.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you smiled back, “I was just curious because I walk by here everyday and have never seen your store before.”

“Ah,” Haechan nodded, “we kind of just opened like yesterday. Before I took over, this store was literally just a grey building which is probably why you’ve never noticed until now. Please sit!” he gestured towards the sofas.

You hesitated but eventually gave in to the thought of how this might turn out to be a funny story to tell your friends over facetime later. Haechan waited for you to get comfortable before taking a seat across from you.

“So what brings you in today?” he asked.

You scratched your head in thought. You battled the desire to vomit up your sob story to this stranger because it would feel so good to just talk to someone and be honest without feeling like a burden. Your friends knew you were having a hard time settling into your new life but they didn’t know the extent of how miserable you were and there was no way in hell you were going to open up to your coworkers. Another thought hit you, if this guy really was a psychic, shouldn’t he know why you’re here?

“I honestly was just curious.” you finally answered.

Haechan hummed in thought and leaned towards you. You felt your face get warm by how intensely he was staring at you. Is this part of the reading…?

“You haven’t been doing well huh? I’m picking up something to do with transition, dissatisfaction and loneliness.” he suddenly says after what seemed like forever.

You felt your heart begin to race again. You knew that psychics do cold readings and their predictions are usually very general but what are the chances of him describing your situation to a T in three words.

“Uh…kind of.” an uncomfortable laugh escapes from you.

Haechan shoots you a sympathetic smile and you swear the room suddenly gets colder.

“Change is hard but adapting to change is harder. You must remember your strengths during these times. Just looking at you, I can tell you’re more than capable of fighting through this.” Haechan says.

You smile and feel a sense of victory. He was right, you are strong and capable! It felt good to get some validation even if it was coming from a conman.

“I can’t fix your problems for you but I can offer some ways you can practice mindfulness in order to heal your energy. On a scale of 1-10, how accepting are you of help?” he asked.

“I’m pretty open minded.” you lied.

Whatever this guy was going to tell you to do, you were absolutely not going to do. You figured that for an extra $50 he was going to perform some stupid energy healing for you where you guys sit in silence for a few minutes while he closes his eyes and pretends to speak to your "spirit guides".

“Repeat this mantra three times after the clock strikes midnight and you’ll find your greatest desire fulfilled.” Haechan says instead.

He hands you a little piece of paper, which you swore he produced from thin air. You take the paper from his hands and read what’s on it. Thorns, crown, poison. Let my world shatter as I swallow it all. You gasped as your eyes looked up from the paper and you see Haechan standing in front of you. The room becomes unbearably cold as he looms over you. You then notice that he’s wearing jeans and a simple cotton t-shirt.

“I keep scaring you tonight, I’m so sorry!” he apologized.

“It’s alright! You just move so quietly!” you laughed as you wave his apology away.

You and Haechan exchange a few more words before you decide to call it a night. He fights you as you try to pay him $20 for his scam. He argued that since you’re his first customer, he wants to give you the session for free.

“If the mantra works within the week, then come back and I will take your $20.” Haechan suggests.

“Sounds good!” you agree, “I hope it does then!”

”It will.” Haechan chuckles, but the laugh doesn't reach his eyes.

You wave one final goodbye to Haechan as he closes the door. The cold autumn air seems to warm up your freezing body. How the fuck is he just in a t-shirt. Maybe my $20 will go towards a heater for his store. As you walked home, you felt a sense of contentment wash over you. You tried something new for the first time since you moved here and you couldn’t wait to tell your friends about it!

You stretched your legs as far as you could as you plopped down on your bed. After a long hot shower and a face mask, you were ready to get comfy and watch tv all night. You rolled over to your nightstand to grab your remote when your attention lands on the paper Haechan gave you earlier. You sit up and grab the paper. For a mantra that was supposed to be uplifting, it was kind of dark. You laughed to yourself at the thought of Haechan typing this out on his computer and printing it out to give to potential clients. You came this far with this ridiculous scam, you might as well just finish-and it was free! You checked the time on your phone. 12:01 am. Three times right? You closed your eyes and whispered the mantra to yourself secretly hoping that things would look up from here.

________________________________

”Going somewhere, Jae?”

Jaehyun yawned as a portal appeared beneath his feet.

“I’m heading to work,” he replied while stretching his arms, “thanks for the new customer, Haechan.”

Haechan gave Jaehyun a thumbs up as he watched the portal glow brighter until Jaehyun began to disappear into the other world. As Jaehyun prepared himself for his entrance, he wondered what his new client would be like and how long it would take before they destroyed themselves. Haechan bet a week and Jaehyun bet a month, winner got to keep the customer’s soul.

#jaehyun nct #jaehyun imagines #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun demon au #jaehyun smut #nct127 #nct 127 imagines #nct 127 x you #motives #jung jaehyun #haechan #doyoung #jeong jaehyun #jaehyun scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #nct 127 demon au

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factual-fantasy · 7 months

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27 ASK :)))))🍤🍤🍤

I do not.. but man I really need to give them names. I intend to name my FNAF au before drawing Moon Malfunction 2.0. And my Deltarune AU... ehhh.. idk, I'll just see if anything comes to me <XD (I'm open to suggestions! :0 )

@eggswastaken

Thank you! But sorry, no fanart rule. I wouldn't like for anyone to draw my AUs Asgore.. Thank you for asking first though <:) A lot of people would have just drawn it and not have cared to ask.

:DD Thank you so much!! :}}}

@luna-purple454

AAA THANK YOU FELLOW ASGORE ENJOYER! XDD

As for his backstory I don't really have any new ideas.. but as for the future?

I have ideas of Asgore seeing other versions of people he used to know. And it really hurts him. Like maybe they pass by and AU where he sees a Toriel. And his heart just aches. Or he sees a Gerson or Gaster, and he just longs for those people. He misses them and it kills him that he cant ever go back home.

Imagine if he met a Toriel that hated Asgore, post murdering kids. And she understands that he's a different Asgore but she cant help but be cold towards him. That might hurt worse than just missing his family. Someone with his wife's face being indirectly disappointed in him. Ashamed of him, angry at him. He never did those things that her Asgore did. But she still glares at him out of habit. And that kills him more than anything. And don't even get me started when he hears about the horrible fates this AUs Asriel and Chara suffered.

I can imagine that like Grillby, his body becomes more unstable the more emotional he is. Maybe they walk through an AU where Asgore meets that Toriel. And by the time they're ready to leave Asgore is wrecked. Seeing all these people broke his spirit. His body has significantly dissolved and he can no longer walk. All he does is hang his head low and weep. Saying he cant move.. and he wants to go home..

Jevil might be able to take the whole group to another AU, despite Asgore's state. But likely they'd just camp out for an extra day or so until Asgore can pull himself back together..

Aw, I'm sorry you're sick, that's no fun. <:( But I'm glad my artwork is helping you feel a bit better :}}}

@cudlycorncornsworthcoberson

Positively giddy my dear fellow

@elegysonnet

I haven't seen it yet, but it looks good and I plan to watch it! :0

@pinkbomb08

:D Thank you! Even if you have nothing to ask, I don't mind a nice message! :}}

@veeneeyyyy

Thank you! And hey man. Being down on yourself about your artwork is just gonna make you feel worse and slowly chip away at your confidence. Trust me, I've been there.

Try your best to always say something positive about the art that you make. No matter how much you think/believe that its bad. And never follow it up with anything bad either, "the face came out nice... but this hand looks terrible-" No. None of that. Actively force yourself to never say anything negative about your art out loud and always search for things that you like in the piece. If you seriously cant find a single thing to be positive about, then say "well I did my best. And I improved a little at art because I drew this."

Trust me man. From personal experience it will do wonders for your self confidence. Eventually that confidence will become second nature. Fake it till you make it.💪

@nutty-candy-lover

WAAA THANK YOUUUUU HHHGHFIIUSDAFI💖💖💖😭😭

REALLY THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I take so much pride in my expressions and angst! I've never really been the best at expressing my stories through dialogue. So I express it through body language instead!

A big chunk of the drawing time is the sketching and the line art. Trying my best to get specific expressions and poses. Like in this post! Most of the line art time was spent making sure that Grillby and Asgore eyes were juuuust right. And that Asgore's hug didn't look too tight or like Grillby couldn't pull away if he needed to. More like he was holding/supporting Grillby with 1 arm, and resting his hand on his back with the other.

I always have this thought process while drawing of "his pose looks a bit stiff, his shoulders aren't drooped down enough. He's grieving, so he needs to look heavier. His eyebrows should be furrowed a bit tighter. No now he looks angry, less furrow, more tears. His tears look too fresh. He needs to look like he's cried a lot recently. Okay thinner tears and marks around the eyes-" things like that.

I enjoy drawing these physical expressions so much and I really try to make them look good. So to hear that you see that effort I put in and you really like it?? wwAAA AWOOOOGOROOG😭😭💖🍤💓💖💘THANK YOU WAAAAAA

@cupcake-kingdom

Sort of..? I think they would have a decent relationship. I imagined him being a cold father but sometimes shows that he cares in his own special way.

Like for example. A comic that I never got around to drawing started with Bowser having a nightmare about Mario. When he wakes up, he proceeds to roam from room to room around his castle. Checking on all of his kids 1 by 1. He could stop by and maybe close their open windows, tuck them back in if their blankets were kicked off. A stuffed animal fell off the bed so he puts it back.

I think I planned for him to make it to JRs room. And instead of just checking and leaving, he goes and scoops JR up and take him back to his room. He also checks on Kamek and the Commander. before going back to bed with JR.

That might be a good way to explain it. He like- he loves his kids, he does. But he's just super weird about showing it and can only be truly tender towards them when something like that nightmare happens.

I don't believe so no. :/

I'm not sure, I haven't seen the Amazing Digital Circus yet <XD

@growing-past-me

Woah woah woah- slow down for a sec, Jevil and Seam are strictly friends through and through.😅 I personally don't support/enjoy ships of any kind. Its just really not my taste. :/

But yes! Which ever story I end up going with, Jevil and Seam escape their AU together and rekindle their friendship. :}

Yes! It is! :DD

Its also a double whammy though because its also meant to parallel Foxy having his mouth tied shut and his hook being removed. 👀👀

I haven't really thought about it too much..

Perhaps they'd feel betrayed? Because Freddy, Foxy and Bonnie all lied to them to keep Gregory a secret? Maybe there would be fighting because Chica and the others think they should call security but Freddy insists that they dont?

Maybe they would think that Freddy is malfunctioning because of how hard he pushing against their protocol? Maybe they'd call security on Freddy because of how he's acting..? Who knows <XD

As for how they acted the night Gregory was there.. man.. they wouldn't know what to say. Some might not even believe it happened, some would be ashamed.. it would be a hard pill to swallow for sure :(

@random-entity-363

XDD he really does use the power of tape to fix things doesn't he? I think he was also just a bit lucky that a lot of the damage on Bonnies body could just be poorly taped back into place.

I supposes that Staff bots could be used to aid Foxy is certain shows of his. But ultimately he is meant to be a 1 man band while preforming in Pirates cove <:/

"Bonnie you have no business being this larg" XDD

I've seen that all over Tumblr in the past few days. I really gotta get around to watching it <XD

@beryl-shade

I suppose its always possible. Although with how I've structured my Vanessa and the "bug", I don't think anyone/anything would make Bonnie do that..

XDD Yeah I can see them freaking out. As would anyone!

Well Bonnie didn't become this way over night. It was a slow process over the span of ten years. Years of constantly being overwhelmed with his performances, interacting with large crowds that he's not designed to process, his friends not giving him space when he really needed it.. He just slowly crumbled more and more until now he's just this cold, angry and rude individual.

However,, when it comes to Vanessa he's not that bad.

Bonnie is designed for interacting with groups of no more then 10 people at a time. He's even better at 1-1 interactions. And that's what Vanessa is. Just 1 person to process. Just 1 child.

And unlike most other kids that Bonnie deals with, she is very shy and quiet. She almost talks less then Bonnie does. That could be why Bonnie was Vanessa's favorite character. She preferred characters who weren't as loud as Monty or as active as Foxy. A slow moving, mellow animatronic is what she was drawn to.

I've imagined them interacting. Bonnie would ask her a question and she would just nod. If she were scared/sad she might not rush to Bonnie for a hug. Rather just sheepishly sit next to him and hold his hand.

What I'm trying to say is, she matches Bonnie's energy pretty well. Bonnie is not scary to her and Vanessa isn't overwhelming for Bonnie. I imagined them camping out in Bonnies room. The darkness makes Vanessa feel hidden, so she actually prefers it. She's shy so she doesn't really say much to Bonnie.. But she feels safe with him.

Maybe she squeaks out a little; "..thank you for helping me.." Bonnie could then turn his head a little and nod. Vanessa could smile and then curl up next to Bonnie. Eventually falling asleep.

They could work, and maybe their bond isn't the same as Freddy and Gregory's, but that doesn't mean it's lesser. Or that they're not as close. I think they're just right for each other. An overwhelmed animatronic mixed with a really quiet kid is a good mix I'd say :0

(Post in question)

I don't have an answer for either <XD

He was just reading "a book" and Kwazii was about to do "a dumb thing"-

@ocinstituterep

I haven't really given their exact ages much thought. Though I kind'a have an age range..? I feel like Barnacles is 40-50 years old. Maybe closer to 40.? Inkling is like in his 60-70s.

Dashi, Shellington, Kwazii, Tweak and Peso are all just bunched together between 20 and 40 years old. But Peso could be the youngest of the 5 and Kwazii the oldest maybe..?

The Vegimals are all under 10 I think.