TEST DRIVE MEME 002

[rubimods]

⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:

Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.

THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.

CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.

If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.

FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS

IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE

The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin.

Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.

You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.

As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.

Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.

This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.

When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.

breaking and entering

If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.

SETTING: CRIME

Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.

Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.

finding roommates

Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.

Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!

OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI

The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.

Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (thirsty) person might notice that their fellow woodsfolk also have one of these somewhere on their body.

FAQ: CURSE MARKS

In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.

Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.

Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.

Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!

the fathomless dark of pajak wood

At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches.

In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.

Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.

In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.

FAQ: DEATH RULES

Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?

In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.

writer's block?

If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!

HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US

Uh oh spaghetti-os.

The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.

FAQ: MONSTER CURSES & TIMELINES

Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.

Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.

someone else transforms

The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.

Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.

(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)

you waited too long

At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.

Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.

As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?

RULES: CONTENT WARNINGS

Comments

[brothergoblin]

[ Something noticeably shifts within Tyler as he thinks through what he's just been told. It wasn't so long ago that he pushed and pushed without thinking of the feelings of somebody he cares about more than anybody. He'd upset her so much for doggedly forcing them to dig deep into the truth that she hadn't spoken to him for weeks after.

At times, as much as he wants answers - either to sate his curiosity or quell demons - he knows he's prone to do it at the expense of somebody's comfort or feelings.

He doesn't ask any questions just yet, instead chooses to rest a hand on Ankari's shoulder and squeezes in what he hopes is a supportive way. It truly does sound traumatic going through these things in such short succession. ]

I'm sorry, Ankari. That's a lot.

[bloomandwither]

[There is the slightest jolt from Ankari at the shoulder touch, but it isn't a flinch away. He nudges into it a bit, smiling lightly and pulling bloom back into place. No feeling sorry for himself, not here and now, when he's in pleasant company. Lighten up and laugh, he thinks.

Ankari tips his glass towards Tyler's, tapping the edge delicately together. A very dainty "cheers"]

A toast, to missing my own wedding.

[brothergoblin]

[ Apparently the booze is doing enough to pave the way for more physical interactions than Tyler is used to. He's spent so many years not hugging people because he'd been so uncomfortable with his chest that now it's more habit than anything. His new chest is everything he's ever dreamed of, but the habit of old, of keeping himself physically closed off, is hard to shake at times.

He doesn't shift his hand off the elf's shoulder, even as he goes to pluck up his glass to toast. The chuckle at the humor is sincere, tickled. ]

To not having to make council porn.

[ Gulping down some more of the mead, eventually the curiosity gets the better of him. Though not without a caveat: ]

Tell me to fuck off if I ask something you're not okay with.

But... how wolf was your wolfman fiancé?

[bloomandwither]

I will be more gentle that that, lad, but thank you. [he appreciates the sentiment, though, that Tyler respects him enough to not demand more sordid details than Ankari may be willing to give.

Though, Ankari is a bit too honest at all times. After drinking to dodging his wedding, he sets the glass down to gesture with that hand as he talks, better painting the picture by gesturing to the parts of himself that the worg would be different, starting with a pantomime of how long a maw would be compared to his own face... which is very large]

Wolf muzzle, snarling fangs and bright eyes- [pulling down from there, he gestures to his shoulders next] -thick fur everywhere, too. Except where he had deep scars. He had more claw marks from his own than damage warring against us elves...- [then he lifts his hand well above his own head, long fingers waving to an upper height that dwarfs both of them,]

-eight foot tall, maybe? They stand upright like men. I was eyelevel to his collarbone. Don't think I could have reached the top of his head even... [Ankari perks himself up on tiptoes just briefly for fun, as if this isn't a terrifying enough picture] He wasn't even the biggest worg there, but if he was being made King... I suppose that make him the strongest of the immediate lot. They have a hierarchy I don't understand.

[brothergoblin]

[ Tyler is still imagining a werewolf from some movie or another, but put into physical proportions like that is weird. Like his brain is trying to change werewolf-like from the imagination bucket to the real bucket.

What's more concerning is probably the next course his curiosity takes. He isn't any the wiser that their beverages might be helping in ways that aren't clear to them.

His cheeks are dusted in bashful pink anyway, skin warming up until his skin is prickling again. Maybe he'll get lucky and Ankari won't notice. Just like how maybe he won't notice Tyler's gaze settles on him for a little longer every time, a little more frequently. ]

Uhm, hierarchy like a traditional wolf pack or... something totally different to that?

[ He thinks credit where credit is due - holding a conversation still is impressive. ]

[bloomandwither]

They seem even more concerned with pure bloodlines than elven royalty is. Something about descending from the moon. [Ankari waves it off, unsure if he's speaking truth or not, which always sits uneasy in his chest. Ignorance is no excuse for lies.]

I am truly unsure. Still, they called him prince and said he would be rewarded by becoming King of Stilmyst as our conqueror. Seeing that play out I, hastily, I offered myself as his tribute groom. If an elven royal was kept in place, then my people wouldn't scatter to the winds. I spun a story to their council about how liken to bees we are, how a hive needs a queen- [a hiccup of a noise escape him- he then rubs his face with some self conscious embarrassment-] -A, a, and yes, I know how that puts me in such a position, metaphorical. Not precisely flattering, given that queen bees are a sorts of broad mares to a hive. Shhhhh about that.

[they may chatting in public about this, but Ankari is being hush-hush in his tone to keep it just... between them.]

[brothergoblin]

[ Any other time, Tyler would be sober enough to realize how politically volatile it sounds. That war had forced Ankari and his people into a position of what sounds like a subservient class in their own home. It would have - and probably will still - rile Tyler up at the thought.

But the depth of that anger is inaccessible as instead he's caught up on the latter part of the explanation. ]

Is that even... is crossbreeding a thing?

[ He doesn't ask if male elves can get pregnant because he just assumes maybe it's the same as humans. Maybe some male elves can. Whether Ankari is one Tyler isn't sure. ]

[bloomandwither]

[There's a relief in Ankari that Tyler doesn't jump to a harsher question, like his own countrymen did hearing of the arrangement to marry. "Why are you negotiating with dogs?" and "a real prince would go out fighting"- the answer being that Ankari did what he had to. He's not someone who can fight like his older brother could. He has words for strength, not a sword arm.]

Not for me, no. Ironic to a blessing from my creation goddess, there would be no natural born children of my line, even if I married someone who could carry child. [many words to say he's sterile, but that's just how Ankari talks, Tyler should realize by now. He has a lot of words, finds they can soften harsher realities like cushions, if there are only enough of them given.]

[brothergoblin]

Do you wish it was different or are having kids not really your vibe?

[ The questions go from slightly invasive to maybe critically so. It's not that Tyler doesn't understand that these are some really personal questions. He does get that. He just really wants to get to know and understand Ankari, and hopefully the elf can see that. ]

Sorry, if you let me I just keep asking.

Are you sure you don't want to tell me to fuck off yet?

[bloomandwither]

I wouldn't tell you that, lad. Ask as you like... though, admittedly, your other questions have been much easier to answer... [Ankari is compulsively truthful, but he knows better than anybody the comfort of a good lie. Would he want to be a parent? A father? It was never something possible to him, he hadn't wasted time fantasizing.

He really does chew on the idea before answering,]

... I truly don't know, I've never considered. My mother would tell me it was only a small part of my just punishment, as my birth ruined her womb. I was only her fourth child... [which is very few for an elven queen, though Ankari doesn't think to add that context in his haze of alcoholic contemplation. Surely humans have many, many more children than that on average, right?]

[brothergoblin]

[ Wincing at that, Tyler doesn't want to come across as pitying. More empathetic towards having complicated relationships with parents. Some people just shouldn't be parents, in his opinion. But that's not exactly the focal point here and as much as he wants to say something of a consolatory nature, it would be cheap in the face of Ankari's honest and genuine thought. ]

It's not the ultimate goal in life society wants us all to believe. Being a parent, I mean. There's seven billion people on Earth. I think a few of us could stand to not have kids.

[ He drags his cup towards him and takes a long, deep gulp. Clearly something has gotten to him and he'd like to try and wash the bitter taste down. ]

And that would require sex in the first place.

[bloomandwither]

[Ankari nods at the final thought, though he's consider that number Tyler said. Billion-? Mathematics don't even calculate so high in his realm of things, nothing recorded even gets close. He can't imagine that many lives exist at one time, even.

An exaggeration, perhaps, but not a lie? Strange to consider.]

Is that something you have much considered yourself? Wanting or... not ever wanting children of your own-?

[brothergoblin]

[ Having to think about if he wanted to have kids happened earlier than most people really think about it in any biological sense. One of the associated choices to make when starting taking hormones - in his case testosterone - was if he'd want to have kids, and so if he wanted any of his eggs frozen.

Eventually he'd decided that if he did want kids when he's older and his own eggs weren't an option then adoption works too. He doesn't share that, not here and now anyway. ]

I'm too young and selfish right now either way so. Maybe in the future but I don't know for sure.

[ Finishing his drink he looks down at the empty cup for a moment and then across at Ankari. ]

You want to go laugh at people in that stall again?

[bloomandwither]

[He nods gently along with the answer given, thinking that's fair enough as a reason. Having children when you are selfish is a cruel thing... not having children when you are selfish is just wise. Ankari almost answers soberly, but Tyler catches him off guard with the last question.

He really bursts into laughter at that!]

No..! No, no, no... we shall not terrorize those stalls again. How uncouth.

[brothergoblin]

It was fun though in the end!

I wasn't expecting to laugh like that when I saw all this.

[ Which is a very vague and understated compliment to Ankari that he'd managed to pull out the impossible. Really what Tyler wants and craves is a distraction. Something to forget about complicated parents and focus on something much more fun. ]

I think it's less fun to laugh at the people in the cages.

Plus they were kind of... it's distracting looking at them licking the bars and stuff. A dick through the wall is comedy. The cages are uhm. More... porny.

[bloomandwither]

[Ankari laughs so hard at that he needs to reach up and delicately flick away from tears from the corner of his eyes. That really got him good,]

I-I, I would... have to agree. The cages are quite disturbing to my... personal sensibilities. So are the stalls, though. Perhaps it is the pampered royal in me, but is a bed too much to ask for?

[brothergoblin]

Seems like beds aren't for sex here, but everything else is.

[ Tyler's talking and words are falling out of his mouth but his brain is caught up in the very normal reaction to thinking about porn. It makes him sound like he's distracted and on autopilot, shifting in his seat and starting to fidget. ]

Have you seen anything that made you-- that turned you on? Seems like that's the point of all this. Feels a bit cheap to just... fall into it so easily, but...

[bloomandwither]

Haah... another difficult question. [he jokes, but it is only from a bashfulness he tries to contain in his mind. There is sex all around them, there's no reason to be shy and sighing. They are also supposed to engage in all this, to let urges be rather than repress every instinct.

And Ankari is struck by his own honest thoughts, how he's been focused so squarely on Tyler. Doesn't that say something?]

To echo your sentiment, you may tell me to fuck off, but... you're the only person yet that I've been intrigued by. P-p, perhaps because... I know we're similarly experienced. [meaning not at fucking all]

[brothergoblin]

[ That yanks Tyler back to the very present here and now. He's trying his hardest to assess if it's a joke or not, especially if it's at his expense. But Ankari doesn't seem like that kind of person and Tyler would be a bare faced liar if he said he hadn't already been looking respectfully disrespectfully.

There's nothing relaxed about how he feels. Not from the anxiety at realizing he really wants something to happen, and is maybe drunk enough to not bounce at the last second. To the arousal he can feel heavy in his blood, amplified by what he's been drinking and the bond they seem to be forging.

Except things aren't as simple as they should be, and so for a moment Tyler looks even more nervous. ]

I don't want to just assume you mean to make out. But... is that what you mean?

[bloomandwither]

I mean... to explore such things in a way we'd both be comfortable. [lots of words to say-]

Also, yes. Apologies, I should have said that first. Yes. [nerve wracking, making such an admission, he can also feel his heart pounding faster than he's used to, rushing through him and heightening his pulse with anticipation. Of what? Rejection, maybe, for a polite decline from this young human who is giving him kind attention and likely doesn't want to see through further than idle curiosity-]

[brothergoblin]

[ Flushed cheeks and slightly dilated pupils is a good indicator of how Tyler feels, the caution he'd felt only moments prior evaporating enough for him to start to smile. He's still nervous, sure, but he feels overwhelmingly safe with Ankari.

Though there's the matter of explaining something first. A mainstay in the lives of trans folks and disclosing exactly that. Tyler's never had to do it before for this reason, and the one and only time he's kissed anybody else, they already knew. ]

I want that, but...

[ His nerves ramp up again, anxiety roiling around in his belly. ]

Uhm, I'm transgender. Do you know what that means? I don't know how elves think about stuff like that. But humans can be weird about it.

[bloomandwither]

[Now, Ankari's people don't have rigid gender roles in their society, it simply isn't apart of their culture. Hell, he was about to be married off as a prince consort to another man. That wasn't based at all in what anybody might want, purely a political move. Needing to be a certain sex isn't a part of most cultures in his world, which are cruel in equal measure regardless of how they're born.

Given that, the precise term isn't one he's familiar with, but the ability to understand one another picks up the slack there. He considers before it dawns on him, nodding along and offering with a measured tone]

I believe I understand. We elves use the term, ah, performance for matters of such expression, gender and sexuality both. It is not uncommon for elves to be born differently from how they wish to perform. Is that what you mean?

[brothergoblin]

[ Unsure what he'd been expecting in terms of reception, Tyler seems to visibly relax. Ankari hasn't punched him or walked away, so the worst outcome hasn't come to pass. He starts to nod slowly at first at the question, until the corners of his lips curve up a fraction into a tiny smile.

He can't explain to Ankari the gravity of being accepted, at least in this small part, and what that means. ]

Yeah. I was a small kid when I realized my body didn't match how I felt inside.

[ A surge of affection blossoms in his veins and he's less wooden than he might have ever been before as he wraps an arm around Ankari's neck, then folds himself against his chest into a hug. He's quite a bit shorter than the elf, makes it easier to slot himself into place. ]

Thanks for not freaking out.

[bloomandwither]

Oh! [Ankari is... not used to being reached out for and embraced. There is an awkward moment where he's obviously not quite sure where to put his hands, deciding that Tyler's mid and lower back is just fine. He returns the hug with a light squeeze, a chuckle softly beneath his breath escaping before he's assuring Tyler with breeziness]

O-o, of course, lad. I trust you'll tell me if I am not polite towards you. Or... if there is any human tradition I am unaware of as an elf, inform me straight away. [there is learning to do, he's sure, for both of them. They're differences aren't pushing Ankari away when they have much in common to find comfort in]

[brothergoblin]

I'm not used to the hugging either, really.

[ A small confession into Ankari's collarbone, Tyler's voice quiet as though he's in a confessional. They're surrounded by other people and for the first time he feels a little less on his own. His fingers find their way into folds of fabric at Ankari's sides. ]

I'm not really into PDA. Uhm, like... making out in front of a bunch of people.

Want to go find somewhere else sorta private?