growling | ax. canon update

Ok sorry bear with lmao :') THIS IS VERY LONG.

Josh will have updated canon knowledge and he’s now married to his girlfriend from back home, but the biggest change is that he’s been re-wolfed by a purebred wolf. The problem is that the show ended on an awful cliffhanger. It established that a) the rules for people turned by purebreds are different (but didn't really specify how) and b) that Josh's human/wolf dynamic may have been screwed up by the interference of a witch.

The series actually ends with Josh stuck in wolf form in broad daylight, which obviously breaks all the rules of the shift being dependent on the moon. I’ll pull him from directly before this shift so he isn’t a wolf in a pod. Even though they didn’t show him shifting back into a human, it has to be possible, because they made sure he has no chance of curing himself this time (unless they intended to have him a dog forever, lmao).

Here’s the canon info on purebreds:

✘ Purebreds are stronger. They have access to their wolf at all times mentally, which gives benefits like increased strength and senses. Josh’s maker, Liam, takes on a vampire – she’s surprised at his strength, and he says it's a ‘purebred perk’.
✘ Purebreds are more wolf than human. When they die they convert to their wolf form.
✘ Liam says that people turned by purebreds are unique, and that being able to handle being a regular werewolf would not prepare Josh for being the ‘child’ of a purebred. He implies this has to do with increased wolf and pack instincts.
✘ Purebreds are harder to kill (seen taking multiple bullets and a knife to the eye and surviving).
✘ Purebreds can NOT go full wolf anytime. They consider themselves “trapped” in a human body for most of the month.

And canon info on Josh post-scratch:

✘ He’s become more ruthless (ex: a bunch of innocents have been turned into monsters, he burns them alive while they’re sleeping).
✘ His wife, Nora, notes that he’s been acting kind of hardcore.
✘ He starts using wolfy language that he wouldn’t go near before, like the concept of packs.
✘ Nora suspects that he wanted to stay a wolf, and wouldn’t have killed his maker to cure himself even if he could have.
✘ After he turns on the full moon, he doesn’t turn back into a human the next day. Since this isn’t something that even purebreds can do, it's probably witch-related.
✘ He has a weird dream (brought on by a witch) in which his wolf attacks him, and after that says that the wolf is “still there” even when he’s a human.

Sorry this is the worst tl’dr :’) BUT with that canon info, here’s my best guess for how to approach his new wolfiness on the ship until it gets jossed next season (unless the show gets cancelled sob).

✘ His shift isn’t completely dependent on a regular cycle. Basically what I’m guessing is that for whatever reason, purebred scratch or witch interference, the walls between his subconscious and the wolf’s have been broken down. The wolf isn’t going to let him shift back into a human without him having to fight his way back.
✘ He’s stronger than a normal human, but only when he works on accessing the wolf – technically the wolf is the strong one, so he’d have to let it closer to the surface to benefit from it.
✘ He’ll struggle with anger issues a lot more. He already had them, but they weren’t directly connected to the wolf previously.
✘ The wolf won't ever go away while he's human, and he'll have to deal with it influencing his behavior and decisions (the hardcore behavior Nora noticed).

I don’t think I’ll mess with him shifting outside of the “full moon” unless it’s an extreme and well-planned circumstance, but otherwise he will be struggling with keeping his human identity intact without losing himself to the wolf at all times. On the show, they already had him acting "wolfy" on the day before the full moon, including increased strength and violent tendencies, so I would basically just make that a more constant thing.

I know this might be dangerously close to headcanon territory, but it’s the best I can manage without waiting for a new season or cancellation. Otherwise I have to make an educated guess or leave him human/not update past mid-season when he’s scratched. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to try to get more canon support for, or if there are any ideas or compromises that you think would work better in-game. Thank you and SORRY again for writing so much!!