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waspabi · 6 years

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If you are still taking passage requests (I know this was like two weeks ago), the scene in Wolfborn post-Snow Moon run, where Nicky goes "pack is fucked." Or the stand-off between Nicky and Malkin. Thanks! :)

I’ll do BOTH, half because I wanna and half because both scenes revolve around the same questions: how do you be a leader, how do you be an adult, how do you figure out how to be both those things and also yourself?

Wolfborn is about a lot of stuff (werewolves, the body, a Disney Channel Original Movie of a sports arc, Nicke and Ovi boning down in a big way) but one thing it is pretty obviously is a coming of age story.

Nicke’s gonna be an outstanding team alpha in our present and his future, but when we meet him he’s a distracted baby who keeps losing his suitcase at the all star game and once left a big money paycheck in his dumb fuckboy mercedes and forgot about it for a month (both facts, can provide receipts).

So we’re looking at this big q: how does he get there?

Nicke tried to tamp down the irritation bubbling in his stomach. Everything was so frustrating all the time. No one took care of the pack properly, and when someone fucked up nobody said anything about it. No accountability, no reliable hierarchy. He had thought things were getting better but really it was just as fucked as before.

The fun thing about being an idiot baby is that a lot of the time you have no idea what an idiot baby you are, which Nicke doesn’t. He really thinks he’s got this shit handled and if he were alpha right now, he’d be able to fix all the pack’s problems.

On the other hand, he’s got some fair points Nicke truly. Truly nothing pricks his hide more than mismanagement and a lack of accountability. For fuck’s sake! Basic concepts! He sees a lot of examples of what a bad alpha is, but he doesn’t see any good ones. All he knows is this is not what he wants to be.

“You always grumpy mornings,” Alex murmured, kissing Nicke’s throat.

That — wasn’t untrue. Nicke tilted his head back, giving Alex more room to work with. He was starting to get hard, which was annoying. He had shit to discuss. Alex was so fucking distracting.

Alex does not wanna talk about this and is gonna pull out all the stops to change the subjects before Nicke gets to the inevitable question, which obviously is about to be sprung:

“Why didn’t you take it? Alex, you will be alpha. Why wait?”

Alex stopped messing with Nicke’s neck and pressed his face underneath Nicke’s jaw. “I’m not ready,” he grunted, voice hoarse. “I feel it. Still young, stupid. Guys see me like annoying cousin, little brother. Not alpha yet.”

Nicke wanted to protest. He wanted to tell Alex that he got to decide how the guys saw him, that he led by example, that he had bolstered the team too many times to count. He brought his hand up to cup Alex’s head instead, fingers moving slowly to detangle his thick hair. It wasn’t his call. He wanted it to be his call, but it wasn’t his call.

Alex doesn’t feel ready. It’s also why he’s refusing the captaincy – which IRL Ovi did because he didn’t think his English was strong enough yet – Alex is really shaped by external opinion at this point in his life and he’s pretty vulnerable despite his big talk. He also doesn’t want to do it alone. He can’t do it without Nicke, and as a rookie Nicke can’t take up that role yet.

Nicke, on the other hand, is not dependent on external validation, even as a little idiot baby who lost his shoes before the All Star/YoungStars event and had to borrow a pair that was two sizes too small (facts, can provide receipts).

“Anyway,” Alex said, tilting into Nicke’s touch. “I think is gonna be you. We both gonna be alpha, but. Think you gonna be my alpha.”

OH HO HO! I wrote this part of the scene like three days into writing the story because I was so excited about it.

I imagined werewolf power structures within hockey were sort of flexible, but at the end of the day, the buck stops with the alpha(s). And within an alpha pair, one of those is the Big Alpha. Alpha Prime.

I never came up with anything good title-wise for our Big Alpha position, but werewolf language was part of the whole language theme in the fic: there is no good word for any of it. All the words characters use for werewolf concepts are vague gestures at the concept at best: marriage is just the closest human concept for their sort of bonded-partnership-pack parents vibe.

(honestly a significantly better translation for team alpha would be team mom/team dad, so like, if you wanna know who is the alpha of another team ask urself: who are the team parents, and you’ll know)

MOVING ON!

Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are used throughout the fic as a comparison: another young alpha pair, already in charge of their packs, but doing things very differently to Alex and Nicke. So I went into this scene thinking: how is Nicke flexing his power? His authority? His position as Alex’s partner? It’s all very new to him, and he’s just starting to try it all on for size.

Nicke’s just got off the phone with Tatyana, and he doesn’t know if he’s met her approval, he’s feeling vulnerable and territorial and as a result he’s feeling particularly prickly.

Evgeni Malkin smelled of scented deodorant, foreign pack and generic shampoo. He held his phone in one improbably large hand and came right at Nicke, frowning. The NHL forbade wolfborns from marking territory in their game arenas, but usually there were ways of getting around that rule — Malkin was clearly comfortable in his territory. He exuded that particular high-handed alpha nosiness from every pore of his skin.

“Yes,” Nicke said. He put Alex’s phone in his pocket.

“Sasha okay?”

Nicke set his jaw. The wolf itched under his skin. “Fine.”

“Was accident, before.” Malkin shrugged. “Hockey.”

“Yes,” Nicke said, and imagined sinking his wolf teeth into Malkin’s throat.

Geno’s actually being fine. He’s got a question! He’s just got a question, he’s comfortably existing in his own territory, he’s already an alpha, he’s confident in asserting himself and it’s making Nicke so ornery he’s gonna pick a fight for no good reason.

“Want see if he come? We have plan. Drinks.”

“No,” Nicke said firmly. Alex was injured. There was zero chance he could go to foreign territory injured, without a member of his own pack to back him up.

Malkin raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he said. “You talk for Sasha?”

Well, this was stupid. Nicke motioned to the empty corridor. “You see him? Right now, yes.”

This is one of those things where when you’re under pressure, sometimes you reveal the core of who you really are. Nicke’s stressed about Alex’s injury, about Tatyana, about his territory, about not feeling in control.

As it turns out, at his core Nicke is bossy as heck, unbelievably protective of his big idiot husband and completely unwilling to lose a fight (that he started himself for no good reason). He’s truly himself in this bitchfest of a nonsense standoff, and nothing brings me more joy.

This standoff was one of the most fun scenes to write. Mean Lars emerging from his chrysalis to dead-eye Evgeni Malkin, ah, chef-kissing-fingers.gif, perfect.

Malkin glowered at Nicke, and Nicke glowered at Malkin. This might have kept on going indefinitely had Sidney Crosby not rounded the corner. Nicke slightly loathed the sight of him, his aw-shucks jawline and boyish curls improbably wholesome despite the vicious way he’d checked Nicke in the second period. Nicke hadn’t managed to get him back, which rankled.

Nicke has more conflict in the story with Geno, but it is Sidney for whom he has true deep disdain in his heart.

Part of it is because Sid is already alpha of his pack and Nicke is jealous and feeling powerless which stresses him out, and the other part is because Sid does so much to make himself palatable to humans. He’s careful with grooming, careful to seem nonthreatening, careful with what he says – meanwhile Alex, obviously, could not be more of a werewolf stuffed into a suit if he tried

look at him! just shoved on in there ready to sign his crazy long contract. bout to bust free at any moment. mere hours away from delighted screaming with Nicklas Bäckström in a deserted carpark.

It personally galls Nicke when werewolves act tame or nonthreatening. Werewolf Nicke didn’t have to deal with humans in any real capacity for a very long time in his life, and he has little sympathy for people who feel they need to cater to them. Both Sid and Alex have had to deal with humans a lot but the way they’ve dealt with that pressure is in completely opposite ways, and for Nicke Sid’s way is… hm. Well.

(Alex, meanwhile, does not care. sure, he doesn’t get that way of dealing with humans and frankly thinks it’s boring but he’s not gonna begrudge somebody their coping mechanism – so basically for nicke it’s all alex ovechkin is a good man. he’s got a good heart. he doesn’t hold a grudge. that’s what he has me [nicklas bäckström] for)

This whole tangent is not really evident in the fic except in minute hints because it didn’t come up but it’s something I liked thinking about so: ur welcome for the unnecessary detail

I’m realising as I write this that I am essentially writing an essay about What Annoys Werewolf Nicklas Bäckström. Glad you asked:

pack mismanagement

artifice

omelets that are hiding secret mushrooms

hotel sheets

Thank you.

Crosby glanced between them, frowning. “Geno? We have to go home.”

“Bäckström not let me talk to Sasha,” Malkin grunted.

“Uh, okay.” Crosby’s suit was terrible, grey and boxy, and he held a knit hat absently in one hand. “We have to go, though. Come on, Geno.”

Malkin looked between Crosby and Nicke like a dog torn between obeying his human and chasing down a particularly galling squirrel.

I really liked contrasting Sidney’s very matter-of-fact non-reaction compared to Geno’s histrionics, and the exchange also revealed who amongst them is the alpha alpha: Sidney Crosby, which was confirmed to me by leading expert Eva @agonyandagony, although I think at this stage of his life it was much less obvious.

Sid and Geno (and Kolzig and Federov and Tatyana and Nylander) represent different ways of being an alpha. It’s that classic story thing of your minor characters being preoccupied with the same questions as your main character, and representing alternate ways of being. Each of them shows Nicke a way to be a leader, to be an adult, to be an alpha, and we learn along the way what he is going to take and not take onboard on his, like, Big Journey.

Uh, anyway, thanks for giving me an excuse to write another 20k commentary to my werewolf fabrication, especially to talk about Mean Lars (Werewolf Edition) who is close to my heart and is someone I would give a 2 hour lecture about at the slightest provocation.

#wolfborn #asks #Werewolf Mean Lars: The Dissertation

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