#t.s. cavanagh

[alexi-of-carthanas]

Attempts were made at drawing T.S. and Malki. Still practicing faces. They are very hard.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

a soft bit from some unplaced scene with T.S. and Sidney in Only Talking Cat 'verse:

“I'm gonna give you my heart, cause you're a sky, cause you're a sky full of stars, cause you light up the path…” T.S. sang idly under his breath, letting the melody ground him as he lint-rollered Alexi’s fur off various surfaces and took a hand-broom to the floor around the areas Alexi liked to sit. “Cause in a sky, cause in a sky full of stars, I think I saw you, ooh-ooh-ooh…”

A footstep sounded in the entryway to the small den area, and he jumped. Narrowly missed crashing into the end table as he turned.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Sidney said. “That sounded pretty good.”

Caught his reflection in the glass of the table. T.S. hadn’t remembered he was capable of turning so pink, either, but here they were. “I - it’s just a little thing I do.”

"I like it," Sidney said, and T.S. felt his face getting redder.

"Really?"

"Yeah. For sure." Sidney crossed the room, and T.S. affectionately bumped his forehead down into Sidney's. Sidney kissed his cheeks. T.S. was very flustered now, and stuttered out something vaguely incomprehensible instead of words.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

Camp NaNo shenanigans

(pt 1) aka the one where I continue to write about canonical backstory between T.S. and Malki and how they met in high school.

------

"Hi," said T.S. politely, by default, and so they wouldn't stand there awkwardly for a year. "I'm T.S. Cavanagh."

The other student looked down, then up, and said something too fast, before trying again: "My name is Ceren Aydemir but you can call me Malki. I am sorry for getting you in trouble but I cannot stand people like them and also I like reading books like that."

"Oh. Um." T.S. tried to process the flurry of words. "It's okay? Malki is a cool nickname."

"Did you name yourself after T.S. Eliot?" Malki demanded, hands moving rapidly around bracelets on their wrist. "Also Malki is nice because it is an older family name of mine and it feels more like me, because I am not a girl. But T.S. Eliot wrote some good poems."

------

Well, T.S. hadn't just backed away nervously to avoid the onslaught of words, so that was better than they got with most people. Malki pulled out the school book they were supposed to read, and slid a piece of folded paper in it to scribble thoughts. 

Whether they'd be able to read the notes after was another story, but hey. They were trying to write a historical steampunk novel, but worldbuilding was occasionally elusive. 

....

Carthanas was in bloom. The cherry and plum blossoms nearly rained onto Malki's head when they went outside, and towering maples sent spiraling helicopter seeds floating by. The water in the rivers was cold, melted ice and snow from the small Amalleian Mountain range to the northeast.

Sometimes they stood frozen, trying to remember other places, because this wasn't the first place they had lived.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

character vibes (only talking cat)

T.S.: Look, we all know in that knifecat photo meme, you are not the cat --

Malki: I am not holding the knife either, I am offended honestly -

T.S.: No, no, you misunderstand, you are the knife.

Malki: -considers- Okay, I can live with that. That is not an inaccurate assessment.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

shitpost o’clock (Alexi and T.S. handshake/pawshake meme)

[alexi-of-carthanas]

From the rewrite, which I wrote 900+ words of the other day.

~  ~ ~ ~ ~

Alexi jumped on the counter beside him, and the black-haired man side-eyed her. “Alexi, the cute look doesn’t work on me when I know you.”

She eyeballed her house-mate and sat down to sulk as he tried to scrub a pot but forgot the motions.

“Also, get off the counter before Sidney finds you there, you know better,” he told her.

“Has he ever lived with cats before?” Sidney was T.S.’s boyfriend, a youth librarian.

“He has, but it was a great orange cat named Admiral that terrorized him at night while he tried to go to the bathroom.” It was a repeated exchange; they’d had it so many times they could probably do it asleep.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

Excerpt from Only Talking Cat: “How does this happen?”

Overview

In this scene, Alexi has fallen ill from side effects of her time in the research facility. T.S., Malki, and Cass are rushing to find a way to save her. Cass has discovered a dossier of research facility test subjects - including Alexi. Malki becomes distressed by the information. Some of the writing is clipped. 

Content Note: discusses the pain Alexi is experiencing as a result of her time confined in the facility, and unintentional self-harm in the past by Malki.

Excerpt: “How does this happen? How?”

T.S. had Alexi in his lap, stroking her ears. She was in enough pain that he had offered her medication. The tortoiseshell cat was drowsing now, ears not turning to track the conversation. A pang of grief hit Malki – an oddly identifiable emotion – before they let it turn to cold anger at the facility.

Cass typed something on her computer, and the dossier for Alexi appeared. They hadn’t named her; the document title was C-UL-001.

“They took her first,” said Malki quietly. “She was the first one they ever took.”

[...]

Looked at the cat asleep on T.S.’s lap, reflexively, and gritted their teeth. “No. How does this happen? How?”

T.S. looked at his friend, and blinked. He hadn’t really seen Malki like this since high school. The archivist had worked on emotional regulation since then, but the floodgates were opening. 

Malki’s voice rose in pitch, and T.S. watched for their ‘tells’, worried. “Animals don’t deserve this. To be treated as collateral in human eugenics projects! How many are there? How many, Cass?”  

Instead of fidgeting to calm down, Malki had gone too still. His friend’s eyes glittered, not with the focused analysis or drive he was used to, but with tears.

“Cass,” T.S. interrupted. “Don’t answer that right now. Malki. Malki.” He gently moved the sleeping Alexi to a couch cushion. “Can I have your hands?” The way no one had asked him for permission. 

But he had always asked before touching Malki in an attempt to circumvent what Malki had used to do with regularity. They’d hurt themselves more than once, re-enacting violence on themselves as an expression of trauma, and of speech failing them.

Malki didn’t answer, but reached their hands over, and T.S. picked up both of them, gently drawing his friend closer, in silence. Their grip tightened on his until it was mildly painful, but he didn’t let go.

[alexi-of-carthanas]

Syntax and Senses

Syntax and Senses

T.S., for all intents and purposes, is in passive voice or similar; he is not quite the one doing the actions... This is not to say he's simply a passive character, or a less strong one. This kind of syntax shows how he's working to survive every day... ...Whereas with Malki I get a sense of being hit in the face by a 2x4, of doing and action and even their thought patterns are bold and in your face. It's Malki/they for the bulk of their sentences, and remains consistent through the novel... their growth is less shown in the syntax itself of their POV as T.S.'s is... ...I wanted to highlight the stark juxtaposition of T.S. and Malki via their syntax. The main takeaway is that syntax can do a lot to show information about a character.

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