Wasted Time
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Hunter Pups Collection; Omari, Jabari, Dakarai and Piper
🕑 Added 2022-10-01 09:12:38 +0000 UTCMoving on to sheet number two, or as I like to call it the 'Hunter-Dabu' pack sheet, as I ended up using the whole sheet to cover all Yuri and Ada's pups.
Yuri, Ada, Omari, Dakarai, Jabari and Piper Hunter;
The emergency trio, as dubbed by my Patreon backer Unformed8. The triplets Omari, Dakarai and Jabari are the first to be adopted by Yuri and Ada under limited griping and most part from Yuri. We've already seen them as adults in a previous ask, so here I get to show them off at around the age they were adopted, which is around 4.
These boys have a complicated and nearly tragic story that saw them being taken by the state and put up for adoption. As I've discussed in previous posts about Hyenas in my AU, and their cultural background, the root of their species is highly entrenched in a matriarchy with males considered second-class citizens. These beliefs run deep and are impossible to shake with some, especially the old mates tales surrounding the birth of multiple sons at once. Twins, triplets, and beyond that are made up of all males are seen generally as an omen, a curse if you will. And unless the parents kill them off, they will be stricken with bad luck for the rest of their existence. In the case of these three little ones, their birth mother was a fierce believer in that tale, and decided to bundle them together in a weighted burlap bag and toss them into a river to be rid of them shortly after they were born. Thankfully, she was caught before throwing the bag over the bridge and the boys were saved.
Ada of course, doesn't believe in such things, and finds treating males as anything other than equals appalling. So naturally, when her and Yuri go looking to adopt, and she sees these boys, knowing how hard they would have it, and then what led them there, she refuses to leave without all three of them, much to Yuri's chagrin. They had agreed to one pup after all, just one. but there was no arguing with his mate. By this point they were tithed, and there was no other way out. Although Yuri's misgivings were short-lived, as though he continues to gripe and complain over the next few years after adopting the boys, he takes to fathering them with gusto.
The name 'emergency trio' should give you some idea that these boys tend to get into trouble more often than not, though usually, they aren't trying to, they just seem to have a natural talent for making messes. Generally, most of these 'incidents' are led by Dakarai, (At least when Piper's not involved.) the unofficial leader of the bunch, as he tends to be the idea guy despite his other brothers being more of the brains of the operation.
Omari is probably the softest of the trio. Kind, sweet-natured and soft-spoken, even as a cub. He spends a lot of time in his own head, thinking a lot as well as asking his parents tons of questions. He's also the Mama's cub of the group, and just likes being hugged and snuggled by Ada. As an adult, he is inspired to follow in his mother's pawpads into the medical field and eventually becomes a pediatric cancer doctor. he also develops a childhood crush on Malcolm and Xavier's daughter Elizabeth, though it takes him until quite late into his teenage years to confess his feelings. Elizabeth surprises him by returning his feelings in kind...but it still takes a few more years for them to get together in an official capacity as Yuri actively fights it due to his discomfort with the loose familial relations and what he thinks will give more ammo to outsiders about wolf families being backward hicks. But eventually, he relents and gives his blessing.
Jabari starts out as the more sporty brother. Into organized basketball, and football (soccer). But when it comes to computers and technology he proves to be exceptionally proficient at it at a young age. By age nine he becomes the household password bank and computer expert, as his mind is like a steel trap when it comes to remembering them, and if he can't he's very good at finding his way around them. His teenage years are spent building bigger and better pc set ups, and running an on again off again pc repair shop from his bedroom, and as an adult he goes on to become a tech support genius. He still plays sports from time to time, but generally, he reserves that for home visits so he can play against his brothers and Dad. Otherwise he's become more of a desktop jockey, doing the minimal amount of physical fitness to keep healthy and in shape during his down time.
Lastly Dakarai, the extrovert and loudmouth of the pack. He's got snark in spades like his adopted Mom, and is constantly getting himself scrapped and chewed up doing all sorts of dangerous things for his age. He's into more non-organized sports activities, such as skateboarding, mountain biking, snowboarding, etc...and the more organized sports he tends to favor are the brutal ones, like hockey, which he and his Pa bond massively over. He's also the one to drag his brothers into dumb and dangerous situations on the basis that they'll be 'pretty cool'. Of course, his Pa being a police officer is really inspiring to him, and he lives to hear stories about his Dad working the mean streets of Seaotter. But as he gets older, while his loud mouth and boisterous personality remain intact, his ideas about following directly in his paws pawpads begin to skew in favor of forging his own path.
Despite his outward bombacity, and seemingly wild nature, deep down he's a caring and thoughtful guy, and the prospect of actually hurting anyone, even a criminal rubs him the wrong way, which is what eventually pushes him into fire-fighting. Naturally, Yuri isn't happy about his son's ultimate choice in career, mostly because he knows he's going to get razzed by not only his brothers, but his fellow officers at the precinct over it till the end of time. But Yuri learned enough from his Pa, and his brother's own experience with breaking away from 'the family business' to know no vocation is worth cutting ties with the ones you love.
The problem with Piper
Initially, the troublesome trio was all Yuri and Ada were meant to get, making him tied to Dawn and Vernon in terms of the number of cubs they were raising. However, again...I felt that strange pang, that weird sense that Yuri and Ada's household needed another pup. An even four making him the biggest Hunter family of the seven. So what to do, what to do? I started rolling through the species in my head. Should it be another wolf? Something small and meek that Yuri can't figure out how to raise right? It didn't take too long before the answer hit me like a ton of bricks.
I've long established both in asks, and my two-part 'Queen of the Dead' fic where Yuri first meets and charms Ada into dating him that he absolutely hates otters. He's 100 percent speciest to otters, and isn't shy about saying it. So naturally, I had to drop an otter pup in his lap.
Enter Piper, a maybe six or seven-year-old otter whose family was involved with one of the city's biggest crime families, albeit at a low level. I imagined them as not being directly involved with any plots, but more suppliers of stuff to those in the actual gang in order to get by and raise their daughter while trying to keep the nature of tier jobs hidden from her. Of course things go south when the mafia decides it needs to end their former partnership with Piper's parents abruptly and brutally, leaving Piper as the only survivor and witness to her parent's murder. Unfortunately for Yuri, he and his partner Lance are the ones to take the case, and summarily Piper is dumped into his lap as he is charged with being the pup's bodyguard until the court case.
Naturally Yuri gripes and moans and complains, but the longer he's forced to act as a surrogate parent to young Piper, the more attached he grows, until eventually, at the conclusion of the case and the subsequent collapse of the city's biggest organized crime outfit, Yuri goes out of his way to get Xavier's help to make sure him and Ada could secure adopting Piper. Much like Ada had been with adopting the boys, Yuri was adamant about adopting Piper, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Though, unlike Yuri, Ada didn't argue or put up a fight, and happily adopted Piper into their pack.
Despite appearances in the sketches, as you can imagine from the ask featuring her as an adult and mentions here and there that Piper is a spitfire and a troublemaker. The kind to insult and egg on adults and larger mammals without a shred of fear or anxiety. That spitfiery nature of hers is what would end up endearing her to her adopted father the most, as he saw a lot of himself in her. Being older than the troublesome trio upon being adopted, as well as her personality has her leading the boys around by the nose a lot of the time, at least when they were little. And if the boys were to live up to their namesake as the 'emergency trio', there was a guarantee that at least half of the situations they got into growing up had been the result of Piper leading them there and then bailing when it looked like things were about to go south, leaving her 'dumb brothers holding the bag.
Piper is a bit of a bully like her Dad, always ready with a put-down or mean spirited remark when it comes to her brothers, and especially her cousins Grace, Paige or Lumi (Trenton and Qali's daughter). Naturally, that attitude, especially in her teenage years, sees her getting into a lot of scraps and scuffles, some of which those 'same dumb brothers' of hers had to bail her out of, but she never backed down. She never let anyone see her cry if she could help it. Of course, a lot of that is fueled by having seen her parents murdered, and the mental scars it left her with.
As an adult she mellows out a bit more, still with an edge similar to her adoptive Dad, while having fully adopted her adoptive mother's accent, but she's closer to her cousins and brothers for the most part. Piper's nature and knack for getting in way over her head sees her pursue a career in hard journalism, covering wars, corrupt political dealings, and all sorts of scandalous exposes that see her get more hate mail than even her aunt Dawn. But while it's a dirty job, someone's got to do it, and Piper just so happens to revel in it.
Okay, I've got about...three sheets left...and it's late, so we'll pick this up tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed these looks into my thought process and character conceptualization, and I hope you like what you've seen so far. Until tomorrow...
-Wasty
