Tai does look like she's gained the Freshman Fifteen.
Angle on Martin does meke his shoulders broader, but he does literally shoulder everyone's problems and hold the gang together in more than one way.
On an Aside Nrrd Con-- my thoughts on possible paths for the characters who might go...
a) Perfect place for Marigold to go on her first date with her Roommate or on a blind date he sets up, or Tai does. She's likely to go anyway. Neh?
b) Hannelore, now hooked on yaoi anime probably is mightily curious as to what else anime has to offer and after her initial experience with Marigold- well her Terminator/Cleaner Outfit is going to fit right in at the Nrrdcon and it'll be amusing to see who'll be more shocked at her presence there. Hanners in the masses of Funk-kiddies or them seeing a real woman near them and not a fellow geek. (though she does qualify as an uber geek with her counting talent. She is going to beat the pants off innumerable nerds/nrrds in trivia - imagine the following question- "How many tribbles were there in Trouble with tribbles if the tribbles really started off with X" She'll know how many were actually shown on screen, how many would mathematically be possible and how many got killed off and how many were transported to the Klingon ship at the end of the episode - all off the top of her head... She's gonna gain fanboys and get exposed to more than she ever expected anime-wise. Tentacular...
c) The trio of Anthro-PC's will likely go too, sneaking out after Marten forbids them. The MP3 player will end up being used at the dance and experiencing Trance music and having the electronic version of an acid trip, maybe... Halfpint will be in heaven and Marigold's doll will have to shock more than a few Fanboys wanting to see her Eel trick (she'd show them the shocking one of course...
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d) Faye goes just to exercise her Spite and Scorn muscles- She gets crowned Dark Lord/Queen of the Damned of several Memes at the same time and has to ask Marten about how to properly whip them...when is it proper, when can she do it for just fun and when does it border on what his mother does/did?
e) Raven makes a showing in a daring dere-dere meme, for the SCIENCE! of it all and cause dating pool here can't be any worse than what's available in the physics dept.?
just the odd thoughts after no sleep in 3 days and well, so far no spiders and the walls aren't breathing much more than usual...meds for ptsd and migraines must be keeping that stuff in check, but dangit to hell I need some sleep. My muse is getting freaking weird and I don't need another one of those letters from my editor about a story idea I had no idea I'd sent her way in the first place...