care and feeding for your wolf

[actuallyawolf]

Who: Ylva and the curious
What: Shenanigans with Wild Shape
When: Early September, I guess. Time is soup.


just a little nap

Ylva is a wolf and has no problem telling anyone about that fact. Still, there are other shapes she enjoys. She is not one to be pinned down to one approach to anything. She's flexible that way.

What this means, at the moment, is that there is an allosaurus stretched out on the pool deck, enjoying the sun. Mammals are fine, but have you ever been a large, warm-blooded reptile in a patch of sunlight? Her feathers are fluffed up strategically for maximum sunning, tail curled politely around her, head tucked gently into the classic bird pose of "using my own back as a pillow."

She is very much asleep, but not deeply so.


just a little awoo

When night falls, though, it's possible to hear howling.

The curious will find a large, shaggy wolf pacing the sports deck under the moon, restless and unhappy. She throws her head back to howl, and stops, listening. There's no answer, of course. She knows there can't be an answer. Still, she does howl, and wait, and listen.

She remains alert, though, one ear always out for someone who might come to investigate the actual howling wolf wandering the deck of the ship.

Comments

[actuallyawolf]

Well, of course she does.

She makes a deep, rumbling sound of surprise, a sort of coo. She really doesn't get to see herself often. Reflections, sometimes, but big mirrors aren't exactly common in places where she can transform into anything very large, cameras are unknown, and she's definitely not important enough for anyone to commission a painting of her.

So this is just a really fun surprise.

Her tail thumps on the deck in a distinctly doglike way, because whatever her current shape some things are just unchangeable about her, and she gives Sharky a friendly nudge with her whole-ass head. Not too hard.

[broshaw]

That's so damn cute and also? Fucking awesome. He has to brace his foot so he doesn't stumble over, but the nudge just makes him laugh. And he doesn't even stop to think that she might transform back into a person to get a better look; he just sorta turns his body so he can angle the camera back in place for her bird-like vision.

"I can take a video, too," he says as he slowly thumbs through the pictures, already planning on sending them to her phone (even if she doesn't know how to use it). "That's like this, but it records you movin' around. So the picture moves the way you did." Fuuuck he hopes that's understandable, it's kind of hard to explain this shit to people, dinosaur or not.

[actuallyawolf]

This is, at least, not the first time someone's mentioned moving pictures. It still sounds like magic to her, but hey, that isn't a deal breaker.

Ylva considers, then nods again. She has no idea what she's getting into, but hey, it seems harmless enough.

[broshaw]

Look, if Sharky could turn into a dinosaur and came from a world without selfie sticks, he'd want somebody else to do him a solid. He steps back so he can get her in better focus, and goes for a fairly standard snout-to-tail pan.

Standard pan-overs obviously include narration, delivered in a "this is so going on Youtube" cadence. "Hey so here we are on the pool deck, YYYYylva's out in full dino-force. As any educated motherfucker can tell you, dinosaurs are both badass and extinct as fuck where I come from, making this encounter baby Sharky's most impossible dream come true. How's it feel bein' a dream-maker???" This last bit is obviously directed to Yylva herself, because she deserves some accolades for being a fucking shapeshifter!!!

[actuallyawolf]

Extinct? Well, that's some unfortunate news. Anyway, Ylva might not know YouTube, but she definitely knows a performance when she hears one. Some things are universal, after all. She does her best to pose, opening her mouth to bare her teeth ferociously -- though her tail is still wagging.

Cannot take the dog out of the dinosaur.

[broshaw]

It's only his Earth where that applies, anyway! There's a Jurassic Park reality out there, Ylva, and the dinosaurs are totally fine.

"Oh my God," that is so cute, but he's trying to hype her up so instead, "Check out the incisors on this motherfucker!!" He uses the built-in zoom to rapidly zoom in and out on her teeth. "Wo-o-o-ah, I would not wanna be the guy to piss you off!"

[actuallyawolf]

She bites at the air. Chomp, chomp. It is true, she is very terrifying and you don't want to fight her. Chomp.

Ylva does actually get up, then, careful of the potential of knocking something -- or someone -- over because she is definitely bigger than anyone was planned for, and she gives a nice good bellow, deep and percussive.

[broshaw]

Definitely stepping the fuck out of the way of the dinosaur, but Sharky's close enough that her bellowing crackles the recording speaker just a little. He's too busy internally freaking out because this is literally the coolest fucking thing he's ever seen, a dream come true ever since he saw Jurassic Park and the t-rex fought off the raptors. He absolutely imagines the movie's theme is playing in the background.

"Duuuuuuude." Just straight-up enamored. Man, is it weird to find a dinosaur hot??? Don't answer that.

[actuallyawolf]

Laughing, she turns back to her two-legged shape, and steps closer. "Show me," she says. "I want to see this. Are they really extinct where you're from? I mean, they're not really found where I live, exactly. The one I met had escaped from a circus."

[broshaw]

He even gets the shapeshifting on camera before ending the video.

"Yeah, they went extinct like, a loooong time ago on my Earth. But I bet there are tons of Earths out there where dinosaurs are all over the place." He's assuming that Jurassic Park and Dinotopia are both real places. It makes the most sense!

Sharky sidles up alongside her and angles the phone between them, starting the video from the top for her. It's a minute, minute-half long of some pretty steady camerawork!

[actuallyawolf]

She watches, grinning in open fascination. "Look at me. I look really good. I had no idea these things could do anything like this."

Ylva glances at Sharky, then back at the phone. "It's like a mirror, but... well, you can save it. I'm... I'm going to guess you're going to tell me that's somehow not magic, though, aren't you?"

[broshaw]

"You're like, the sexiest reptile I've ever filmed," and he's been to anthro-cons, okay, he knows his stuff. "And, like, yeah, I guess it's not magic, but it's not not magic."

That probably doesn't help.

"It's like, technology is so complicated that most regular people who use it don't actually know how it works. We all just assume it's microchips and shit, but this thing could be working off fairy dust for all I know."

[actuallyawolf]

She looks briefly startled in a deer-in-the-headlights sort of way at being called sexiest. The reptile part of that is weird, but not a whole lot more than being called sexy at all.

It's not a response she's used to hearing, and she has no idea what to do with that information. She certainly has no idea how she's supposed to respond to that, so she's just going to... ignore it. Yeah. That's probably fine.

"So it might as well be magic, even if it's not. Pratt said something about lightning and stone. It's so neat, though. I think that's one of the neatest things I've seen here."

[broshaw]

Well, like, he'd tell her she's a sexy lookin' human, too, but that probably wouldn't make things any better...

"Fuckin' A, of course he said some dumbass shit like that. This thing ain't a rock, it's like... a magic metal box." Yeah, way more reasonable. "They are pre-tty fuckin' cool, though, right? Here, I can send you the video and the pictures. Then you can show off whenever you want!"

Like in a hallway where turning into a dinosaur might not... work out so great.

[actuallyawolf]

No, it would not help, she would not be able to deal with that any better.

"You can send that to me? How?" And here is the great secret: Ylva hasn't really worked out half of what a cell phone can do. "Does that mean that my... thing like this that they gave me, it can do this too?"

[broshaw]

Sharky loves showing shit off, so that's fine by him!!

"It's called a phone, and yeah, yours can totally take pictures and videos too. And people can send you text messages. Uhhhh, it's like writing a letter to someone, but they can read it instantly. You just need someone's name and room number."

This is basically why he's like "it's all magic."

"You can also call people, which is like... uhh, you can have a conversation with them from different places. It's pretty fuckin' cool, TBH."

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva digs into the pocket of her very stylish bag, because you can never have too many pockets to pull her phone out. "I didn't really realise it did anything other than open the doors of the cabin," she says. "Can you show me?"

[broshaw]

Extremely stylish, and Sharky gives it a nod of approval. "Yeah, here! This thing has so many functions."

He'll hold his own phone out next to hers, and he spends the next few minutes showing her how to find and send a text message, then how to find the camera and switch it between photo and video. His photo gallery has... uh, you know what, he's just gonna not scroll past the pictures of her as a dinosaur. Yep, probably better for both of them...

[actuallyawolf]

A very informative and overdue lesson, thank you very much!

"Wow, that is... fancy," Ylva says at last. "Neat, though. So they must have things like this where you're from?" Come on, that's at least as impressive as dinosaurs, and it shows in her voice.

[broshaw]

"Oh yeah, pretty much everyone back home had a phone before the Collapse." And that's the payoff! He got to have internet, Youtube, and memes, at the expense of dinosaurs and other sick-ass extinct animals. "They're super cool, though, right? It's better than havin' to wait for letters or whatever. Like, now that you've got my number, you can hit me up literally whenever."

Actually... "So you didn't have anything like phones back home? Like... IDK, telepathy or some shit." He's trying to understand magic, okay??

[actuallyawolf]

"Well, telepathy is definitely a thing. It's just not something I can do. Or that most people can do." She pauses, tapping a finger against her lips thoughtfully. "Well, we did have a thing. A magic jewel we could use to talk to Bowen. But it only worked once a week. It wasn't all that useful."

[broshaw]

"Once a week? That would suck. And only one person? Damn..." Yeah, he'll keep his phone, thanks. "But like, my world doesn't have any of that kinda shit. Like, there's some weird sorta-magical bullshit, but other than that..." Shrug. "Nobody can turn into animals or, like, anything cool. Closest I've seen is this one dude back home could kinda... super jump? Because he ate a special apple, or something."

Cult shit sure is weird, man.

[actuallyawolf]

".... Huh. Are you sure there isn't magic in your world?"

Ylva shakes her head. "Wizards, though. They make weird, weird things. But sometimes neat. Bowen also had a room in his tower full of doors that went all the way across the continent to other places. And he had a door that went to an entire other plane of existence, too. But also he lost his tower, so I don't know how you can be so smart and also so dumb at the same time."

She says, without a hint of irony.

"So maybe he could do something that works more than once a week, but he just. Didn't. For whatever dumb reason."

[broshaw]

"I mean..." Shrug?? He really doesn't know. Like, you go your whole life with nothing weird happening, and then for three years there's magic meth brainwashing people into zombies??? What's he supposed to do there??? "Not enough that I ever noticed it, I guess..."

But there's a bigger question here.

"How the fuck did he lose a whole-ass tower?"

[actuallyawolf]

"That's what we said!" Ylva says, half laughing, half exasperated. "No, the thing had legs on it, lots and lots of mechanical legs. Someone stole the key for it, and then someone else stole the key from them, and then in the confusion the tower just sort of took off on its own. We found it stuck in a swamp."