There is just something so awooga to me about hybrids in the sense that their emotions are so clear to read! The way their ears flop or stay up, or just the way their tails could wag when they see you or something they like! It, it just warms my heart :)

Yesss it’s such an adorable concept and oh so fun to write! Regardless of how composed a character is, as a hybrid they wear their hearts on their sleeves and it’s painfully easy to tell when something is bothering them.

Some rambling below the cut about the animal hybrid characters (I dunno how else to refer to them djhkjhd.

Content: just some headcanons and platonic fluff! Reader is gender neutral but not referred to much.

Characters: Diona, Sucrose, Yae Miko, Gorou, Tighnari

Side note: I use they/them pronouns for Sucrose because of how I personally interpret/headcanon them and their gender! I’d appreciate it if those referring to them while commenting on this post specifically could do the same just on here, please!

Diona doesn’t even try to hide the way her catlike parts twitch and flick about when she’s annoyed - if she’s mad, she wants everyone to know it. It’s a communal problem now, so you’d better look out for that tail fluffing up and the ears going back! However, she can get very shy when her tail sticks up and waves about of its own volition when she sees somebody she looks up to or considers a friend. Diluc once offhandedly commented about how her ears twitch forward whenever she’s listening intently to someone she admires and now she just. Covers them with her hands or a hat which makes it so so much more obvious (don’t tell her that though).

Sucrose is super insecure about their animal parts, so they tend to just hide them away wherever possible, folding their ears down and tucking their fuzzy little tail into their clothes. This means they have very little practice actually controlling their subconscious reactions to things if their ears and tail are exposed for whatever reason. Their ears twitch up and down excitedly when they’re happy about something (usually an experiment gone well or a cool item to collect/observe). They tuck themselves up all small and unassuming when feeling shy (which is pretty much always unless with someone they know well or on their own). Albedo keeps a little handbook documenting what different expressions of Sucrose’s may indicate in more detail.

Yae Miko has lived with all her quirks for long enough to be able to have almost full control over them. Her tails she keeps hidden away whenever possible - attempting to touch or grab where the tails should be will earn you a smack on the hand and a stern scolding. Miko learned some time ago to use her ears as a bit of a nonverbal indicator for when she’s talking to those she’s close with - with some practice, it becomes easy to tell when she’s teasing or joking if you pay attention to the subtle twitches and turns of her ears. If she’s particularly amused, they’ll wriggle up and down and set her earrings jangling against one another. Sometimes, if she’s very excited (or perhaps mad) you may catch a glimpse of soft pink tails wagging. If you’re extremely good, she may let you touch them some day.

Gorou has no semblance of control over his puppy aspects. It’s painfully obvious what he’s listening to and what he’s feeling. A lot of these match up very well with the behaviours of normal dogs, so it’s not exactly a hard or complex language to learn and adapt yourself to. His ears swivel to the direction of whatever he’s listening to or flatten against his head when he’s upset, his tail wags when he’s happy, and coils up between his legs when he’s scared. He barely even seems to notice it until someone points it out. His soldiers tend to place even more trust in him since he wears his emotions so plainly - he couldn’t lie to them, even if he wanted to. Sometimes the twitch of his ears in a certain direction can be read as a nonverbal indicator that there’s enemies preparing to ambush from that side. If you point out his body language, he gets extraordinarily flustered and pouts.

Tighnari also exerts a large amount of control over his ears and tail - it takes a lot of effort and is a learned behaviour from when he used to study at the Akademiya (someone’s fascination in his hybrid genealogy could very quickly derail a conversation). He consciously has to allow himself to not keep his tail still and ears held rigidly, unless he’s very involved in whatever he’s doing (whether that be a conversation or some particularly interesting research). He’s also beginning to learn to use his ears and tail as nonverbal tone indicators. He sometimes struggles with others reading his tone as inherently stern or mean (especially Collei, who is heightened to that sort of stuff), so he has a whole library of different gestures that may mean different things. A flop of one ear may mean he’s confused about a statement, a twitch backwards could indicate sarcasm or amusement. There’s a work in progress visual handbook being passed around the Forest Rangers for the made up language he’s going for. To other hybrids it may be completely off putting since it’s designed more for the consumption of his friends and the other rangers.

Please don’t steal, repost, copy or otherwise plagiarise my writing!!