#'people would be flashbanging everyone with them!!'

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

It's a somewhat random GW2 wish, but I'd love it if there were dyes specifically designed around being multicolor/iridescent/rainbow in some way. Like you plug them into the slot, and they give that piece an iridescent quality that causes color shifts depending on the lighting and angle, with different dyes having unique hue ranges.

So maybe you'd have a glossy flame one that ranges from bright yellow to deep red, or a glossy aquatic one with seafoam green to deep cobalt, or a straight up rainbow one that could be used for dragonvoid-esque aesthetics if you pair it with abyssal/shadow dyes.

[midnight-hotel]

Missing (Alastor x Reader)

My first fic in 4+ years, please go easy on me. This story occurs during and after the final episode of season one. Enjoy and feel free to give feedback!

Coughs racked your body as you struggled to take in a breath of dust polluted air. Pain shot through your undoubtedly broken ribs and back with every cough, blood splattering across your bottom lip and tongue, amplifying the smell of iron in the air. Wrapping an arm around yourself, you stared up at the executioner who was quickly approaching with their broken spear. 

‘Shit- I might actually die here…’ 

They lunged, ready to plunge their holy weapon through your skull. You tried, with all your might, to push off the wall and away from death’s path, failing to notice that it wouldn’t have come to begin with. The next time you looked back at the angel, they were on the ground, covered in their alarmingly golden blood, several holes littering their body. 

Looking around, alarmed, you realised that you had been saved, but by who? Your eyes briefly met with Angel Dust’s, and in that moment, you knew your saviour. With no time to show your gratitude, you spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground and stood, grabbing the angel’s broken weapon to take as your own. If Alastor’s shield could fail, then there was no way you could take a moment to stop and breathe, everyone needed you to keep fighting, as much as you needed them to as well. You could only hope they were all okay. 

It seemed like there was no end to the onslaught of angels. They just kept coming out of that damned doorway into heaven. You were growing tired, injuries burning and only getting worse, but stopping now would only lead to your death and possibly the death of others. Stabbing another Angel through the chest, you kicked their body away, stealing their intact spear to replace the broken one you had left in the corpse. That’s when you heard more commotion from behind and then an irritatingly familiar voice. Turning, you understood why everything had kicked up a gear.

Adam was still alive? But that could only mean…

“Alastor!” His name tore up your throat as you quickly looked up towards the roof of the hotel. Shit- he couldn’t be… but would he have really allowed Adam to get away and rejoin the fight? 

Dropping the spear in your hands, you ran for the hotel, barging in through the doors and rushing up the stairs. You needed to get to him. He couldn’t be dead. 

Third floor.

The whole building began to shake as you reached the third floor. Looking down the stairwell, just barely able to see through the dust, you could make out Dazzle and… was that Vaggie? You contemplated jumping down to help- Dazzle was clearly not about to get up but… you needed to get to Alastor. Vaggie would be fine. So, you continued running up the stairs- cursing yourself for not being in better shape.

Sixth Floor.

The building shook again. ‘Shit- I don’t know if I’m going to make it up there.’ It sounded like the fight had made it to the top of the hotel already. Based on the rubble constantly falling overhead and how the place was quickly falling apart.

Seventh Floor. 

There was a bright light- a flash really- and you think you heard screaming? Fuck it, there had been non stop screaming for the past hour, what was one more? Your vision had hardly cleared from the flashbang when the whole building started to come down. Dropping to the ground, you tucked yourself into a corner, hoping that there was enough structural strength in that section of the building to prevent you from being crushed. The last thing you could recall was the feeling of something falling on top.

Who knows how much time had passed before you were being pulled from the rubble. There was too much going on- too many people talking at once, too many people hovering… you reached out, swatting away the faces that were too close. 

“Alastor… where’s Alastor?” you croaked, trying to push yourself up into a seated position. Your beaten body screamed at you- begging for you to just lay there and rest, but you needed to know if he was okay- needed to know where he was. 

Multiple hands helped you up, but you took no notice of who it was. From who you could see, the makeshift army hadn’t lost too many numbers but everyone was about as fucked up as you were. 

“We… don’t know…” You turned your head to Charlie who looked as if she had been crying. Of course she had… out of everyone, losing anyone would have hit her the hardest. Your heart sank. No one had seen him? Looking around at the others- even Husk shook his head, almost looking worried, before he spoke up. 

“He’s not dead. Not yet anyway. That asshole’s probably hiding away somewhere, butt hurt that he lost to an angel,” he grunted out, subconsciously bringing a hand to his throat. Of course Husk would know if Alastor was gone… he’s bound to him after all. 

“He could be buried under there though- we need to search. He could be dying in there,” You tried to argue, standing only to stumble back into what used to be the hotel. 

Angel Dust grabbed you by the wrist to stop you, pulling you back. “Easy there Doll Face. We’ll find him or he’ll show up. You’re in no state to go digging through what’s left right now.”

It wasn’t fair. How could everyone walk away from the disaster that was once their home while there were still people missing?

That was three weeks ago. As you laid in bed, in a room provided by Lucifer himself to those who had nowhere else to go, you stared up at the ceiling, thinking the last few weeks over. Everyone’s injuries had been healing pretty well, though yours were a tad worse since you had the building come down on top of you. There was a lot of talk about rebuilding the hotel. Plans had been drawn up and Charlie and Lucifer had teamed up to clear the rubble from the original hotel so that everyone could start building fresh when the time was right. 

There was also a lot of talk on what to do about the lost lives. Memorials were being planned out, names of the fallen cannibals taken down in order to properly remember those who sacrificed themselves for the cause, a painting for Pentious and even a statue of some kind. You hadn’t really been listening to that part. You hadn’t listened to much at all really, either constantly lost in thought or bed bound by your injuries. You were getting pretty sick of not being present, physically and mentally.

As you closed your eyes to sleep, something inside the room moved. Eyes snapping back open, you quickly looked to where you saw the movement, just barely catching the tail end of a shadow disappearing from outside your door. Climbing out of bed, you pulled a robe over your bandaged body and quickly exited the room, looking around for whatever it was that you had just seen. There was no one in sight. All the other occupied rooms in the hallway had their doors closed and lights off, so you doubted it was one of them. Right as you were about to head back into the room, you saw it again, rushing around a corner.

Quickly you ran after it, hoping that by the time you reached the corner, it wouldn’t have disappeared. Injuries, mostly healed but still tender, began to ache from the sudden strain as you tried to keep up with the shadow that passed through another door. 

Before you could open it and continue your pursuit, you had to stop and catch your breath. Healing ribs ached and your once punctured lung protested with every deep breath taken. Sucking in one more deep breath, you pushed yourself to open the door, leading out into the courtyard. Pretty big place for just one person to be living in most of the time, but this is the home of the king of hell himself, so you supposed it was fitting.

Subconsciously holding your ribs, you looked around for the shadowy figure again, but in the dark, there was no way you would be able to see it so easily. Without really realising it, you had walked further into the courtyard, admiring the garden in the small amount of light that was available. ‘Lots of roses… surprised there isn’t an apple tree or something.’

“They are quite beautiful aren’t they?” A voice suddenly spoke up, making you jump. Whipping around, wincing as your bruises and stitches stretched, you eyed off the culprit.

“Of course, I much prefer Nerium over roses.”

“Alastor…” Standing before you was the man who had made this last week a living hell. Did he not realise how much sleep you had lost, not knowing if he was okay? How worried you had been? 

“Only because they’re toxic you freak…” you retorted softly, not even sure if he had heard it as you slowly approached him.

“I had a feeling it was your shadow I had seen… You’re the only sonofabitch I know who can do that.”

Stopping just short of the man, you stared up at him with tired eyes. He looked down at you, that stupid grin on his face, like it always was. 

“Now Darling, must you use such language during our happy reunion? Aren’t you happy to see me?” He mocked, before you weakly punched him in the chest.

You hadn’t even realised it but you had started crying sometime after seeing him standing there. “You asshole… Don’t you know how fucking worried I was about you? Where have you been?” You hit him again, hardly bothering him by the looks of it, as he hardly flinched with every hit. He was a lot stronger than you were… but you supposed you didn’t really want to hurt him.

“Why couldn’t you have at least told us you were okay? Why didn’t you show yourself? I was scared you were dying under the hotel or something- after losing Pentious- I don’t know what we would have done if we found you dead as well.”

A hand dropped onto the top of your head, silencing you and you stopped hitting him, dropping your arms and instead, falling forward to rest your head on his chest.

“I apologise for causing you such grief my dear. I must be honest, I had some loose ends I needed to tie off before I could return. If I had been able to inform you of my whereabouts, I would have,” Alastor remarked, a familiar, almost comforting radio static coating every word. 

“Everything is okay now though isn’t it? We’re all alive and we can start rebuilding the hotel much faster now that I’m back! Though I must say, I am honoured that you care so much!”

You shut your eyes, concentrating on the hand that was gently petting your head before pulling back. “You’re a liar. You got hurt. You can fool everyone else as much as you want Al… but you can’t fool me that easily. I’ve known you far too long for that. You got hurt and you should have come to me. Hell, I was coming after you- to help you and I got crushed because of it!” You didn’t mean to raise your voice, or blame him for the building falling on top of you, it just happened. You wiped your tears away with the back of your hand and watched as his gaze softened a little while his smile remained. 

“You said it yourself (Y/N), you’ve known me too long, to think I didn’t get away. But, if it’s all the same, I apologise. I truly never meant to frighten you.” Alastor cupped your cheek, gently guiding you to meet his red gaze. “I promise, from now on, I will assure you I am okay before running anymore of my long term errands. Okay?”

Anyone could tell he was still hiding things from you, but what more could you do? You knew him well, but you didn’t think anyone truly knew what was going on inside of Alastors mind other than Alastor himself. 

“Okay…”

“Wonderful Darling. Come now, I do believe we should be getting you back to bed. Those wounds aren’t going to finish healing if you keep running around like a headless chicken.” Spinning you around, he set a hand onto your lower back and started heading you back to your room so that you could get some rest. Typical Alastor… always quick to disturb and dismiss… but at least he was okay. You felt like, as long as he was okay, maybe you could be okay as well.

[aurae-rori]

DR RATIO ANALYSIS: PART 2, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

SPOILERS FOR 2.1 CONTENT.

Now, you might be saying - "Aurae, you already did one, why do you need a second?" And my answer is, "LORD, I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW HIS DEFINITION OF 'IDIOT' IS DIFFERENT. AND ALSO HE DOES NOT HATE AVENTURINE NOR DOES HE THINK AVENTURINE IS STUPID." Once again, here is my disclaimer - although I have been researching psychology for a solid six years, I am NOT a professional. (I will be, one day. Just you wait, just youuuu wait-) So understand that everything I say has been analyzed with personal judgement, with my own conclusions, come to with logic and my personal interpretation. This is just what I have concluded, and you are always free to disagree.

This is my legacy. To be an analyzer. So let's go.

Okay, now that my disclaimer is over, let's take off Ratio's plaster head and chuck it into the sea, and see - what does he mean by 'idiot'?

This will be much shorter than my last, so don't worry - I will not be flashbanging you with another 4k words. This is more like a follow up, than anything else, because there's a few things I wish to touch on.

Dr. Ratio doesn't hate idiots in the sense that he hates people that have 'low IQ' or are 'stupid' in terms of being 'slow to understand'. I definitely touched on this in my last analysis, but he hates people who take their education for granted and don't go places with the gifts that they've been given. He hates "idiots" - "narrow minded" people who have the capabilities to do more and perceive more than they choose to do. People who deliberately look away or take what they know and what they could do for granted. He wants to open people's eyes and allow them to see life from multiple different angles and he believes that everyone should have a chance to learn - with the whole "knowledge for everyone" thing he's got rolling.

He wears a plaster head around people he doesn't seem to know too well in order to think more, or so that he doesn't have to see the faces of the people he dislikes. Pretty good roast. However, he does NOT wear that plaster head around Aventurine. Let's listen to the doctor's judgement - Aventurine is far from stupid. Although he likes to chalk up a lot of the things he does to his own luck, he is an INCREDIBLY capable individual who's managed to get this far because of his own form of genius. He's a man who relies on chance and good fortune, yes, but his charm, his way of scheming, and the way that he's good with people? That's skill. A talent he doesn't take for granted. Dr. Ratio respects him for this - because despite the fact that he has no proper education, he has his eyes wide open to the world and doesn't take shit for granted. He learns what he can in order to survive and he does it fucking well - Aventurine is a very smart man. He's observant, quick on his feet, and great at going with the flow and thinking in the moment.

Aventio aside, I actually believe that Dr. Ratio would be a really good teacher to those who struggle. He's patient where it's needed to be, even if he's got a quick temper, and I believe in his pursuit for knowledge he would do his best to go out of his way to find strategies that would work for their individuals. We're all unique, and he's aware of this - and because he wants to allow people to think for themselves, whatever helps the individual works. Depression? He's got a psych degree, I'm sure bro could give you some strategies. Autism? He has a touch of the 'tism himself. ADHD, and not feeling organized? Bro will help you. It's canon that he's a great fucking teacher - those who finish his classes go on to become successful people who are intelligent and critical thinkers. Round of applause for Ratio, the man that kins my father. He's shit at emotions, but great at knowledge.

Also, on that note, I believe that he would most likely hate parents that push thier "gifted" students to the limit without any compassion for the person that they really are. He's most definitely got some of that academic trauma so I believe that bro holds a secret disdain for parents who just use their children to gain more recgonition. Well, not so secret. He'd cuss them out. (Ratio please cuss out the horrible parents.)

Dr. Ratio, the Teacher ever. (Hey, maybe he'd get along with Kunikida...)

Also, I am definitely planning on making a fic where he teaches Aventurine Latin. As long as you're eager to learn and willing to look past the chalk being thrown, he's got a place for you.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk. I did not read this through, so this is not edited. Take my unedited rambles.

[chaifootsteps]

If Viv just called herself a NSFW artist and labels her media as fetish media, I think there'd be a lot fewer issues. I've floated around the horror community, which has a lot of controversial subjects and media in it, but everything is clearly labelled and everybody knows what they're getting into when it comes to that community. If I hired friends of mine to colour a comic for me, or I hooked an audience for a comic pitch, and I didn't give them any heads up that "this is a horror comic, it'll have a really bad gore scene in the middle", it would be very jarring to everyone else and borderline seedy toward the uninformed crew to just suddenly flashbang them with a really gory scene.

Randomly flashbanging everyone with a subject that is your personal fetish and with a character you've fetishized almost since their inception, and then trying to hide behind a veneer of "it's actually so deep narratively" is ignorant at best and gross at worst. It's not even a matter of "Can we depict SA in media??", it's entirely a matter of a person who isn't clearly labelling their work as fetish material going out of their way to insert their personal fetish into the media - it's the feet in iCarly. It isn't deep, it isn't meaningful, it's entirely for the creator's gratification and to hide behind people who opt to defend it is particularly nasty.

Some people who deal with the traumas of war and death like there being depictions of it, others don't and consider most depictions to be glorifications - both sides are victims nonetheless, and to use one side as dehumanized checkboxes in an argument is also nasty. If you cannot make your argument without saying "Well these victims support me", you have a bad argument, you have no legitimate reasoning. It's like writing 50 Shades of Gray and trying to argue that "Actually, if you dislike this you're just a hater, because clearly it's a narrative masterpiece and actually it helped my fans discover themselves and it saved their lives and it saved them 15% or more on car insurance and-" No, just admit it gets you your jollies and admit you write bad smut.

This, 100%.

It's not about whether we can depict SA in media...we can and have depicted SA in media, and done so more tactfully than what Viv has done here. A well portrayed scene of a character's trauma can be a powerful, inspiring thing, but that's not what's happening right now.

I wonder if even if she did try to go the horror or fetish artist route, whether her behavior wouldn't have caught up with her eventually. Even horror and fetish crowds expect creators to behave a certain way, and in some ways, they're even more stringent about it.

[agent-cupcake]

Flashbang

Chapter 3 - My Ugly

Spotify Playlist / All Chapters / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 /Chapter 7/ Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 pt.1 / Chapter 9 pt.2 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12

Pairing: One Piece Live Action Buggy x f!Reader

Synopsis: You have a lot of uncomfortable, complicated feelings about yourself, your life, and Captain Buggy. Buggy has a lot of comfortable, uncomplicated feelings about using you for cheap entertainment.

Word Count: 7.8k

Notes: My dearest says that this is her favorite chapter so far and I'm inclined to agree. It's almost 8k of sexual harassment in the workplace peppered with reader being Not Okay and Buggy riding that line of silly goober and sexy bully. Hope you like it as much as we do~

“I don't care if it hurts meI want to be worthyThe world to be thirsty for meI will grind night and dayLike a cosmetic slaveTill you're 6 feet down bad for me”

x

Dad liked to go out at night. More often than not, the big grandfather clock’s little hand hovered in the uneasy in-between of eleven and one before he got back. Drinking, usually, although you knew that wasn’t all he did when he was gone. He said it was business. Now that you were older, you understood that the two of you lived beyond the means of a retired Marine, but you never cared to know how. Dad wouldn’t have told you anyway. It wasn’t your place to know. Your place was curled up on the hearth as the fire burned down to cinders, dutifully waiting for him to return in case he needed something from you.

This wasn’t at all the same. This was a job. A duty rather than an obligation. The sense of hot determination from earlier had yet to fade. You were going to make yourself irreplaceable. You were going to be the best. You would not fail Captain Buggy or Cabaji—you would prove everybody wrong. You had to. There was nothing else. 

To that end, Captain Buggy’s bed was made, the room was tidy, you knew what to use when removing his makeup, you knew where everything was kept. That didn’t stop nerves from buzzing in your stomach like angry bees, or keep your skin from crawling at the idea of being alone with Buggy after everything Crina and Cabaji had said. You tried, as surreptitiously as possible, to find Crina’s missing dress, but to no avail. It left you thinking that maybe you were just confused. Even the parts of last night that you could remember were hazy, and then there were the many, many things you didn’t dare to remember. So how could anyone—let alone people who weren’t even there—assume something inappropriate happened? If anything, you were the one in the wrong for imposing on the captain like you had.

Another reason that you had to prove your worth. You repeated that over and over to keep yourself from spacing out, to remain focused so that you would be ready when Captain Buggy came back. It made the span of minutes feel like days, but paid off because you were on your feet before he even had the door all the way open.  

“Good evening, Captain Buggy,” you said respectfully.

He kicked the door shut, not acknowledging you. Too busy mumbling under his breath as he stomped through the antechamber. You followed quickly, a sick pit forming in your stomach. It seemed the poor mood from earlier had not only returned, but gotten worse.

“-buncha talentless idiots. Good for nothing, rotten lot of-” Buggy paused, shrugging his coat partially down his shoulders. He stayed like that for a moment before snapping. “Well?” 

“Well?” you echoed nervously. You hadn’t prepared for this. 

“Don’t just stand there looking stupid, take my coat.”

“Right, of course. Sorry, sir,” you told him, rushing over to take his coat as he roughly shrugged it off. 

“I hope you’re not as useless as everyone else on this ship,” he said. “I can’t deal with another failure.” 

“I’m sorry, Captain Buggy,” you said, hanging up his coat while he removed his gloves. 

When you turned, he threw them at you without looking. You tried to catch them, but missed. Only having one eye made it difficult to judge where things actually were, and your fist closed around empty air while his gloves thumped to the floor. Buggy seemed too lost in his own world to call you on it as you stooped down to pick them up.

“I’m a clown, not a goddamn miracle worker,” Buggy continued, pulling off his hat and headscarf. Finally free, his hair flopped down, creased from being up all day. To your surprise, the bits of what looked like ribbon were entwined with his hair, only adding to what looked like an absolute nightmare to try and sort out. Absently, Buggy smoothed and tied it back. “Nobody is prepared. Rehearsals start tomorrow and, frankly, I’m not optimistic.” 

Scowling, he tipped into his chair, legs outstretched, elbows on the rests, and his chin resting on his fist. 

“I could put out a casting call next time we make it to port, replace some of the dead weight,” he muttered. 

Since he didn’t sound like he was talking to you, you remained silent as you knelt to remove his boots. What you realized right then, what you hadn’t stopped to consider, was that his boots weren’t the kind with laces, they needed to be pulled off. You frowned, grabbing his foot and getting a solid grip around the heel.

“-check their egos,” he continued, paying you no mind as you tried to wrestle his boot off. Unfortunately, Buggy didn’t seem at all inclined to point his toe and make it easier for you. “I really can’t stand divas.” 

You adjusted your grip to get better leverage, bracing the sole against your chest and pulling at the ankle. 

“Every idiot with a deformity and shitty act thinks they’ve got what it takes to be a star. They’re lucky to have the chance to be in my show.” 

Taking a big breath, you pulled hard. His boot finally came off, but the amount of force you had to use nearly knocked you over. Luckily, you managed to avoid that particular embarrassment. Setting it aside, you grabbed his other boot, mentally and physically bracing yourself to wrestle it off. 

“They have no idea of how much blood, sweat, and natural talent goes into perfection,” Buggy continued, continuing to ramble to himself. This time, you avoided falling, but only narrowly. It was good that he was so distracted. “Without me, they’d be nothing. They’ll be nothing anyway, if they keep this up.” 

Letting out a sigh of relief, you stood up to set his boots aside. The next part was the one you had been dreading ever since Cabaji told you about it—removing the captain’s makeup. Oil remover first, then soap and water. Mind the lashes, don’t get anything in his eyes. Mentally, you added Crina’s reminder about not drawing any attention to his nose. 

Your problem with the idea of it at first was that standing so close to Buggy seemed intimate, but now you worried about his reaction. Buggy was still muttering to himself as you washed your hands and filled a bowl with water, angrily staring at the wall. So far, his ire hadn’t been directed at you, but that could change. Very easily, that could change, and you knew what happened after that. 

If you worked quickly and didn’t mess up, then everything would be fine. Telling yourself that over and over, you took everything to his desk. That drew Buggy’s attention just like you feared, but his muttering had stopped.

“I still don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” he said.

You froze. “Captain?” 

“It’d be nice if you had some sort of skill. Anything, really… You sure you’re not holding out on me?”

You set down the bowl and bottles before holding out your empty hands with your fingers splayed, showing him the fronts and backs. “I’m not holding anything, sir.”  

“No kidding,” Buggy said. To your relief, he finally cracked a smile, pressing his hand against yours. “How could you hold anything with those tiny little doll hands?” 

You drew back with a frown, your shoulders curling. He sounded like he was teasing, but it reminded you of what Crina said about stunted development. Pushing that thought from your head, you picked up the cloth, but he stopped you. 

“Ah, ah, ah. That shit’s messy. Clothes first.”  

“Clothes?” you asked.

“Yes, clothes. My clothes,” Buggy said slowly, like you were stupid. Your only response was to look at him uncertainly. “Take them off.” 

“Right, of course,” you said with a little shake of your head, stepping in closer. Standing between his legs. He was so indifferent to personal space, yours or otherwise, so it wasn’t as if it was a big deal. It wasn’t. It was fine. Completely fine. It wasn’t as if there was anything strange about this. There were many nights when your dad was too drunk to take off his clothes and you had to help, this was the same thing.

Except that it wasn’t. 

With Buggy sitting, you were a tiny bit taller, finally seeing eye to eye. His were so pretty. Disarmingly so, their color divided between the ring of blue encasing the green haloing his pupil. You tried to avoid them, tugging your bandana down a little more to cover the scar before undoing the loose knot of his cravat. Last night, before the alcohol really even set in, you remembered wishing to see more of his neck. Now you were almost afraid of it, overly aware of your awkward, fumbling fingers as you tugged the fabric loose. His neck was pale and smooth, nothing like the wrinkled, leathery tan your father had after years as a Marine. You couldn’t help but let your gaze slip over the pronounced shape of his Adam’s apple, following the strong lines of tendon that descended into his shoulders, down the valley between his collar bones to the trail of hair that disappeared into the deep V of his vest.

“This isn’t a peep show,” Buggy said. 

“No, I…” You cleared your throat. “I’m sorry, sir.” With careful hands, you folded the scarf and set it aside. He wasn’t wearing an undershirt, so the vest was all that was left. Buggy leaned back so you could undo the front, saying nothing. Part of you wished he would, just to break the tension. It wasn’t weird. You had seen shirtless men before. Cabaji hadn’t been wearing a shirt and that was fine. You were a pirate now, you had to get used to seeing skin. 

It was different though, with him. Of course it was, because you made it different. Wiry as he was, Buggy wasn’t boyish in the way you almost hoped for. The word your brain supplied was adult, not because of the difference in age or size, but because he physically existed in a way you didn’t. There was no curious dip where his neck met his shoulder, and hair trailed all the way down his torso. He was solid. A man. Standing in front of him instilled a very odd sense of vertigo within you, like drowning. A wave of nausea rolled from your stomach all the way to your head, the sickness of shame and something else, something worse. 

“I’m sorry,” you said again, your face burning as you turned to put his vest aside.  

“I was just kidding. It’s not a crime to admire a work of art,” Buggy told you with a lopsided grin. “You’ve only got one eye anyway, it barely counts.” 

“I wasn’t… I don’t mean to,” you said, wishing to be anywhere else. You tried to distract yourself by dousing the cloth in oil, but you could still feel his eyes on you, watching your awkward movements. 

“Jeez, relax a little,” Buggy said, grabbing your shoulders to give you a shake. “I know it’s a huge honor to serve me and you’re scared you’ll mess it up, but I’m not gonna bite your head off or anything.”

“I know,” you said, unable to look him in the eye and knowing better than to look at his nose but also unable to look down at his body. The middle ground was to look behind him but that was just as awkward as anything else. 

“Just be careful, I wouldn’t wanna end up with an eye like yours,” Buggy said, tapping the bottom of your chin playfully before closing his eyes. Being spared of his gaze helped, at least. 

“Yes, sir.” 

Taking in a deep breath to steady yourself, you held his head in place with one hand and began to clean his face, starting at the top and working down. You could only imagine how long it took to draw on the crossbones, but the oil made quick work of them. And then the blue, cleaning up the sparkles. You took extra care to be gentle around his eyes, but he didn’t react at all, sitting still as you peeled off the lashes with the aid of more oil. 

Without anything else to distract you, your thoughts of last night only spiraled. Now that you were so close to him again, you had vague flashes of sitting on his lap, although you weren’t sure if that was real or not. Hopefully it wasn’t. The embarrassment would eat you alive. And then there was your conversation with Crina. In your head, you had tried very hard to imagine what he might do or say, how he might react if you asked what happened. It was just in case. You needed to know that Crina was wrong, that the entire crew was wrong. You knew, and Buggy knew, that he would have no interest in you. So you would say what you needed to say, confirm that you were right, and move on.

“Captain Buggy?” you asked, pausing to adjust the rag.

“What?” 

“About last night… I had too much to drink, and I know I was being annoying and I know that we… um… and that I…”

“Does any of this have a point?”

“Oh! I’m sorry. Nevermind,” you told him, shaking your head and refocusing on finishing your task.

He opened one eye to give you a flat look. “No, no, you can’t just leave me hanging.”

You sighed, carefully working on the corner of his red smile. You remembered, distantly, having drunk thoughts about his stubble, and you were right about it being rough. “It’s just that I can’t remember everything that happened last night,” you said, “but I remember enough to know I embarrassed myself. I’m really, really sorry if I put you in an uncomfortable position.”

“What are you talking about?” Buggy asked, his voice distorted from the way he had to hold his mouth taut for you to wipe off the makeup.

“I want to apologize if I was too forward and you felt pressured or, um, uncomfortable. I’m really sorry.” 

“The only thing I felt pressured to do was carry you to bed. My bed, by the way. You’re welcome for that.”

“Thank you,” you responded quickly. “I’m really sorry, truly, but thank you.” 

“Sure thing, kiddo,” he said, opening his eyes as you cleaned up the last smears of paint from his jaw. “I couldn’t stand the thought of anybody else taking advantage of you.”

Your breath caught with nerves. He probably didn’t mean that in any way, but the phrasing made you blush. Blush more. 

“By the way, um,” you said, “do you know what happened to the dress I was wearing?” 

Buggy opened his eyes and stretched, yawning loudly. You didn’t want to, but you couldn’t keep your eyes from wandering down for a moment before you caught yourself. “When?” he asked. You busied yourself with the water and soap before he could catch you looking. 

“Last night, I was wearing a dress that Crina lent me.” 

“Really? I didn’t notice.” 

“That’s fine! I was just wondering if you know where it is?” 

“Why would I?” 

You looked up, but Buggy looked as innocent and bored as his tone would indicate. It was a stupid concern in the first place, there was no way he would have done anything. Shaking your head of the annoying thoughts, you raised the cloth to wipe off the oil and any remaining traces of makeup. He watched you this time, only closing his eyes when you were cleaning them. Very studiously, you avoided his nose—avoiding even looking at it. What you were left with was a very regular, if handsome, man. Pink lips, a cleft chin, beautiful eyes. Maybe that was part of why the nose upset him so much. Before the accident, you liked to think that you had been pretty enough, losing that made your injury that much more hideous. 

“Come on,” Buggy asked, still staring at you as you put the rag back into the bowl, “aren’t you going to ask me?” 

“Ask you what?” 

“You wanna know if we fucked,” he said, dragging out the words in a slow and mocking way. You gasped at his childish use of vulgarity, your stomach twisting up. Buggy grinned. “Don’t look so scandalized, I know you were thinking it. Well, we didn’t. Trust me, you’d remember that. You did get a little handsy, but I didn’t mind it. I don’t feel weird about it or anything. I managed to fend off your advances until you passed out.” 

You shook your head, staring at his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Captain Buggy.” 

“Aw, are you embarrassed?” he asked, putting his hands on your hips to sway you back and forth. The casual touch made you jump, more aware than ever of his state of undress. But it wasn’t weird. People touched all the time. It wasn’t weird. “I promise I won’t tell anybody how badly my little one-eyed monster wanted my one-eyed monster.”

It took a second for you to realize that he was saying what you thought he was saying, and that was your limit. You stumbled away from him with a choked squeak, covering your face with your hands. They were still wet, but you didn’t care, only wanting to hide from him as he laughed at the joke.

“You are just a treasure trove of new and exciting sounds, aren’t you?” 

You slowly lowered your hands, still shaking your head. “I… I didn’t mean…” 

“Hey, hey, do you think if I squeezed you real tight and let go it’d sound like a squeaky toy?”

“Um… I’m… I don’t…”

“God, don’t look so scared, I wasn’t gonna try it,” Buggy said, leaning back. “Yet. You’re way too squirmy and I’m tired.” He yawned again to make the point, causing you to yawn in turn. “You too, huh? I’m surprised, you only slept in for half the day.” 

“I know,” you said, averting your eye. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry, sir.” You were glad to have the excuse of cleaning up to avoid his eyes. 

“From now on,” Buggy told you seriously, “you’re an early riser. I could need you at any time, so you better stay on your toes. That’s the only way you’ll ever be able to reach anything.” 

You blinked, realizing too late that he was poking fun at you. At least it was about your height this time. Buggy’s grin fell, disappointed with your lack of reaction.

“We’ll have to work on that,” he said. “Now make like a tree and… Well, more of a stick. Maybe a stump… It doesn’t matter. Get out of here and come back bright and early tomorrow. Don’t forget.” 

“I won’t,” you said, relieved that he wasn’t going to ask anything more of you after making that comment. “Goodnight, Captain Buggy.” 

“Sweet dreams, babydoll.” 

Despite how tired you had been all day, you couldn’t fall asleep. Since you often only got a few hours to rest, it wasn’t usually that difficult. It was a talent, mom used to boast about how good of a baby you had been, sleeping through the night while other infants screamed and wailed to be fed. A small and quiet child, so easy to mind. 

But you didn’t want to think about that.

You shifted, curling up beneath the uncomfortably thin blanket you had been given. The beds for the crew were dormitory style, set into the walls. You got the top bunk, sleeping above a woman named Pippa. She had heavy eye makeup and clipped words. Her big steamer trunk laid by your feet, she claimed you were small enough to fit with it on your bed. Everybody slept in the same area, men and women. Crina told you to get a knife to sleep with, although you had forgotten to heed that warning. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, you wouldn’t know how to use one. You never had before. 

Except for once. 

But you didn’t want to think about that either. 

Rolling onto your back, you stared at the ceiling. The ship creaked and people snored and coughed and snorted. Footsteps above and waves below, the ocean was a place of endless motion and noise. A constant reminder that you were on a ship with your crew. Which was what you wanted, wasn’t it? Not only that, but you had been given a respectable job. You should have felt a sense of accomplishment. This was far better than what you had hoped for when you left home.  

Maybe it just hadn’t set in yet. Maybe you would feel better after getting some rest. Maybe you just had to get used to being here. 

Maybe you had made a terrible mistake. Maybe you couldn’t handle this. Maybe you were exactly as weak as Crina and Cabaji accused you of being. Maybe it was only a matter of time before you disappointed Captain Buggy and he cast you out with nowhere to go. Or maybe it was that intangible monster that people called fate, the rusty ladder you had trapped yourself on. The only way down was to take each rung at a time, to obey the gravitational weight of inevitability. That’s what took you northside, that’s what made you beg to join Buggy’s crew. And now you were a murderer, was that inevitable too? 

There was something within you that screamed, that thrashed, that bled. Something with gnashing teeth and clawing fingers. The thing that existed in the hollow pit when you were half conscious, the one that took over when you were smothered. She didn’t understand why you acted the way you did, she was different. You made her skin crawl with disgust for letting a man touch you and hated you for what you had done, the betrayal you perpetuated with every mile put between you and the remains of your town. She was a familiar host, always there, always agonized and angry and bewildered by your behavior, holding onto your worst feelings. 

Once, you were in love with Randall. He was the neighbor boy, the son of a carpenter. He wanted to be a Marine. You wanted to leave Barley, actually leave, not just the short trips like dad sometimes allowed you to go on with him. But then the accident happened to your mom and Randall inherited his father’s business. He told you it was a matter of responsibility. You had yours, and he has his. And then he had a pretty girl from a nearby town, and you only had your dad. You hated him. Didn’t you? If you hated him, that would be better. You had to hate him.

Eventually, you rolled onto your side and, an eternity after that, fell asleep.

Days began early on a ship, a shift change rather than a good morning. Not that you would know what time it was, buried in the ship’s stomach like you were. The hour didn’t bother you as much as the cold did, it was the first thing you were aware of before your circumstances snapped into place. The facts came easier than they had the previous morning, your reality slightly more real. You sat up slowly, crusty eyed and with a headache, looking around to orient yourself.  

Privacy was a foreign concept to the pirates, they all went about their business without any concern for anyone else. To your surprise, the women were as casual as the men in regards to their modesty. Averting your eye, you awkwardly got dressed under the covers before climbing down, fixing your bandana over your eye and breathing deep to try and wake up. Pippa was still sleeping, sprawled across her small bunk with one toned leg sticking out. 

Although others were eating, you didn’t join them. Captain Buggy got his breakfast first. The cook made no comment, although you did get another look. Lots of people had given you looks. But nothing more. Cabaji said that having an official position among the crew would keep you safe. Keeping your head down and fighting the dizzy pain of your worsening headache, you hurried to get the food to Buggy’s chambers. After serving him, you would eat. Maybe Crina would give you something to help you feel better again. 

You knocked on his door and then waited, listening. On a ship, there was never silence, but there was a sort of hushed equivalent. You knocked again, a little louder, calling his name. And again. 

Deliberating for a moment, you decided that it was best to use the key Cabaji had given you. After knocking and calling out your intentions, you awkwardly balanced the tray to unlock the door and enter. The dining area antechamber was empty. You set the tray on the table before venturing further, peeking your head into Buggy’s bedroom. The captain laid in a sprawl of pale skin and blue hair, face down and fast asleep. 

Were you supposed to wake him up? 

“Captain Buggy?” you called softly. “I brought your breakfast.” He didn’t move, but you could see the steady rise and fall of his breathing. You walked a little closer. “Sir? Are you awake?” Nothing. Carefully, slowly, you approached him until you stood at the edge of the bed. “Captain?” you asked, daring to reach out and touch his shoulder. 

“Not now,” he said, slapping your hand away. “‘m very busy.” 

“Sir, you told me bright and early,” you said, frowning. With the amount of light peering in through the curtains, it was certainly bright outside.

“Bright and…” Buggy began, his words eaten by a yawn. He finally opened his eyes, rolling onto his side and blearily looking up at you with a smile. Illuminated only faintly and obviously sleepy, the expression was shockingly boyish. “Hey there, babydoll. I knew you’d come crawling back to me.”

“No, I um… I brought your breakfast, Captain Buggy,” you told him, flushing.

“Oh. Right, you’re…” He groaned, exhaling harshly.

“It’s going to get cold, sir,” you told him nervously.  

He blinked alert suddenly, sitting up.  “Why didn’t you say so? I can’t stand cold food.”

“I-”

Buggy snapped his fingers, gesturing to the side. “Get my robe,” he ordered. He barely opened his eyes as he snatched it out of your hand and stood up, stretching as he left his room. “If it’s inedible,” Buggy called, “I might have to eat you instead.” 

While it sounded like a joke, his tone was not at all humorous. You didn’t respond, hurrying so you could pull out his chair for him. Buggy dropped into it heavily, yawning without bothering to cover his mouth. There was something slightly funny about the way he was huddled beneath his robe with a sleepy scowl, his hair a disaster and face scruffy. He ran a hand over his cheek and chin, frowning.

“I could help you, if you wanted,” you offered. “You know,” you gestured to your face, “shaving.” 

Buggy blinked at you. Then he burst out laughing.

You shuffled self-consciously. “What’s funny?” 

Taking in your confused expression, his laughter came to an abrupt halt. “You’re not serious.”

“I am.” 

“You think,” Buggy said, “that I’m gonna let you,” he pointed at your left eye, “anywhere near my neck with a sharp object?” 

“I’m very good at it,” you insisted. “Dad… His hands are shaky, so I help him with it.”

“With one eye?” he asked incredulously. 

“Yes,” you said, a hint of defensiveness in your voice. 

“Yeah, I’m probably gonna have to say no to letting the one-eyed new girl anywhere near my neck with a razor,” Buggy said with another yawn, taking the lid off the tray. 

“Is there anything else, sir?” you asked, knowing better than to push it.

“Yeah, go get something to eat,” he told you. “You’re too scrawny.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rest of the day passed like the previous afternoon. Crina agreed to give you something for the headache in exchange for fetching supplies she needed, and Cabaji continued his lessons from the previous day. 

Eyes followed you wherever you went. Regardless of what Buggy said yesterday about you being a member of the crew, you knew that some of it was hostile. You couldn’t fight, you couldn’t perform the basic tasks of a sailor, you didn’t dine with the crew, and you had no talent to add to Buggy’s show. Many of the pirates were already working on their acts, it was just as likely to have to avoid a stray juggler as it was to weave around men minding the sails. There was no strict order like there had been on Marine vessels, but colors and noise and movement of every variety, and you weren’t involved in any of it. 

Ostracization came as a natural consequence of who, and what, you were. In some form or another, you knew it very well. What you couldn’t handle was the fear you felt sometimes when you passed other crew members, or when you were too far from the captain or Cabaji or Crina. Sometimes you caught sight of Ivo. Rather, sometimes he caught sight of you, and his expression would darken. Cabaji said you shouldn’t worry about it. You weren’t worth the risk.

The duties Captain Buggy expected you to fulfill, at least, were not difficult. It seemed like Cabaji’s warning was for nothing because the tasks given to you were standard. Delivering meals, cleaning, taking messages, and anything else he needed. By the end of your second night, you felt like you had a handle on it. 

Until the third day came and you learned a new lesson. Buggy’s moods were as fickle as the sea, calm as glass one moment and riled into a frothing swell the next. A man with a temper wasn’t very new to you, but Captain Buggy’s rules were entirely different. Where your dad misinterpreted your behavior to be in opposition to what he wanted from you, Buggy had a way of misunderstanding any behavior he didn’t like as direct insults to himself. 

The afternoon had been wearing on and on, and Buggy didn’t dismiss you from his office while he worked on the logs, leaving you to sit across from him, just waiting. You had a habit of losing track of yourself, your mind wandering whenever you were left to idle, to seek some distraction instead of having to contemplate your own life or thoughts. It wasn’t always that foggy nothingness. Actually, you were thinking about a story you’d nearly forgotten about. A girl whisked away on a grand adventure by a boy who descended from the clouds, one conjured from childish whimsy. So it wasn’t as if you were looking at anything in particular, you were barely aware of anything until Buggy snapped at you. 

“What are you looking at?” 

You blinked, shaking yourself free of the cloud filled daze. “Sorry, sir. I-” 

“You were staring at my nose, weren’t you,” he said, his voice hard.

“I wasn’t,” you told him, shaken by the cold anger of his random accusation. And you didn’t mean for your eye to flick down to his nose, it wasn’t like you had been staring at it in the first place, but Buggy clearly noticed, a muscle in his jaw ticking with barely contained rage. Your heart dropped, your tongue clumsy as you tried to desperately placate him. “I wasn’t looking at anything, I was thinking about a book I read-”

“Red?” he shouted, abruptly standing up with enough force to knock his chair over. “You were staring because you think my nose is red?”  

“No,” you said, shrinking back. “I wasn’t, I swear.” 

“I saw you doing it and, unlike you, I’ve got both eyes. Pretty soon, that’s gonna be two more than you’ve got.” 

“Captain Buggy, I wasn’t-” 

“Get out,” he demanded. “Right now.” 

“Yes, sir,” you said, bowing your head and scurrying out of his office, carefully sliding the door shut before escaping into the bright afternoon. 

There weren’t many places on a ship to hide, but you were small enough to fit in between the large crates of supplies in the cramped storage room beneath the forecastle. Luckily, you managed to avoid any attention until you were safely hidden. You didn’t cry, but it took you a while to stop shaking, composing apology after apology in your head. When you emerged from there, you returned to your chores, and you kept waiting for him to summon you again, to hit you and get it over with. That’s what the aggressive posture he’d taken always led to. A black eye, sore ribs. And you were prepared for it. 

But he didn’t. 

You weren’t summoned again until you were informed that Captain Buggy decided to dine in the officer’s mess and you, of course, would serve his meal. 

When you entered from below, the colorfully decorated room was abuzz with activity and laughter. You recognized Crina and Cabaji, of course. The former was in deep conversation with a red-faced officer you thought was called Newt. Mohji sat in the corner with Richie at his side. Buggy sat in the center of it all. The star. Having an audience didn’t do much to set you at ease, Buggy had no reservations about dealing out punishment in front of his crew. Nobody would dare to stop him. You kept your head down, taking Buggy his food and desperately wishing to be invisible. 

“Is there anything else you need, Captain Buggy?” you asked softly, staring at the floor rather than risk meeting anybody’s eye. 

“Yeah, sit down,” Buggy said, pointing to the chair next to him. You peeked up at him, confused, but he was far more concerned with his meal than you. After earlier, you expected red hot vitriol, but Buggy was relaxed, and you didn’t see any anger in his eyes. That was another lesson about the captain. His temper flared at the slightest provocation, but burned out fast. 

You sat down nervously, looking around again. The other officers were only just being served, but that didn’t stop Buggy from immediately digging in. 

“I heard that you don’t eat enough,” he casually said, talking with his mouth full. There was only one person who would have been able to tell him that. You looked over to where Crina sat, but she seemed to be reading Newt’s tea leaves. “What kind of message does it send about me if my little protégé is starved half to death? From now on, you’ll eat when I do.”

“I’m sorry, captain. You really don’t need to…” your words died out, withering away beneath his hard stare. “Thank you, Captain Buggy.” 

And so you were served with the rest of the officers, given a larger portion than you usually took. Buggy insisted you eat every bite. And then, after that, he insisted you stay in the officer's mess while they all drank and talked. Ale, mostly. A few bottles of the harder stuff were broken out, but nothing that interested you. The mere scent of it was sickening, let alone the taste. You wouldn’t want to drink anyway. A liquor-loosened tongue could very easily upset Buggy again. 

Cabaji began to idly juggle after a little while, which caught your interest far more than any talk about the winds or raids or treasure. He made it look so easy, tossing and catching the balls without any added tension in his posture or change of expression.

Very abruptly, he caught the balls, looking at you directly. “Do you need something?” 

“Oh, no,” you said, embarrassed at getting caught staring. “No, sir. It’s just so cool to watch, that’s all. I can stop.” 

“Maybe you should give that a try,” Buggy said, leaning in to catch your attention. “It could be your secret talent. Cabaji, hand those over.” 

“Captain Buggy, I don’t think I can juggle,” you said. “With my eye-”

“That wasn’t a problem when you were watching Cabaji,” Buggy said, handing you the balls Cabaji had just tossed over. “Nobody’s gonna laugh at you, I promise.”

You weighed them in hand, your stomach twisting because you knew that this wouldn’t end well. At the very least, the only people who were watching were Buggy and Cabaji. You let out a big breath and, with all of the grace you could muster, accidentally threw two balls in the air while dropping the third. You tried to catch one, but your hand closed around empty air to the side of the ball where you thought it would be, a common occurrence when you only had one eye. They all hit the floor with dull thumps, rolling away in different directions.  

Almost immediately, Buggy cracked up, leaning back in his chair with how hard he was laughing. Ducking your head, you got up to hunt down the dropped balls, your cheeks flushing red. 

“You’re supposed to catch them, genius,” Buggy said, breathless from laughing. “Here, hand ‘em over. I’ll show you.” 

He set down his bottle and you gratefully let him take the balls. Buggy straightened out, lining them up in his hands. He did far better than you, smiling at his own success, but slipped up when his eyes flicked away for a second. One of the balls escaped and hit the floor for the second time. 

Buggy scowled, tossing away the other two in exchange for his bottle of ale. 

“Clearly there’s something wrong with those ones. I think they got broken or something when she dropped them.”

“I am so sorry,” you said, meeting Cabaji’s dark eyes. 

“I have more,” he said, unconcerned. 

“How about cards?” Buggy asked you, quick to move on. “Do you know any card tricks? You gotta be hiding some sort of talent.” 

To nobody’s surprise, but Captain Buggy’s immense amusement, you were not.

That seemed to be the point because, rather than be upset about your consistent ineptitude, Buggy laughed at each failed trick just like he had with the juggling. At a certain point, you began to feel a bit less insecure because at least he was entertained by you. Not to say it wasn’t humiliating, but you could accept that as long as Captain Buggy was happy. You liked his laugh, mean or amused or raucous, you didn’t think you’d ever get tired of it.

When he finally called it a night and your decided lack of talent was exhausted, the full moon had reached its highest point and Buggy was more than a little drunk, needing you to steady him on the way back to his cabin. He was heavy and hot, singing a song you were pretty sure was entirely made up and you worried that if he collapsed, you would both go down, but you managed to get him all the way into his cabin and onto his chair. 

Buggy told you stories as you fixed his hair and got his clothes off, drunkenly meandering between his prowess in combat, awkward encounters with fans, and tricks he’d effortlessly pulled off on idiot nobodies. 

When you stood in front of him with a washcloth, Buggy blinked a few times, his eyes focusing on you with more clarity than you expected. “You and me, babydoll, we’re the same,” he said seriously, the words muddled by his drunken slurring. “Like, obviously you’re way more pathetic and less talented, but both of us were kept down by people who didn’t see our value. People who wanted to—to stifle our light, to keep us from ever shining the way we’re destined to.” 

“Do you believe in destiny, Captain Buggy?” you asked, beginning the process of washing his face. 

“Of course I do,” he said, his eyes closed. “I’m destined to find the One Piece, to become King of the Pirates, to be loved by everyone. You agree, right? That’s why you wanted to serve me.” 

“No, I wanted to serve you because I-” you cut yourself off, realizing that now probably wasn’t the time for you to start talking about your feelings. 

“Because you… What?” 

You sighed, kicking yourself for saying anything. “When I saw you and your crew northside, I remembered my dad mentioning you a while back. You were involved in a raid on a town he had been staying at,” you explained as you removed and set his false lashes aside. “He called you a freak. There are a lot of weird pirates, but only you were a freak. Buggy the Clown, the Fool, the Jester—I’d never seen or heard anything like that. And then I saw you and your crew and it was just… I had to. No matter how scary or difficult it would be, I didn’t see any other option. I know you’re going to do everything you say, but I ran away and all of that because I wanted to serve you, Captain Buggy.” You shrugged even though he couldn’t see, shaking your head with a nervous smile. “If that makes sense.”

By now, you had gotten to his cheeks, but his growing smile made you stop. 

“I knew it,” Buggy said with a huge, manic grin. 

“What?” you asked, dismayed.

“You’re in love with me,” he said. “I knew it the whole time. I mean, the signs were all there, I just figured you were too shy to say it. But this… sheesh, you’ve got it bad.” 

“No!” you exclaimed. “No, that’s not what I meant. You’re my captain, it’s not anything like… like…” 

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he told you, grabbing your shoulders, “it was bound to happen at some point. I’m willing to help you out, I’ve just been waiting for you to get desperate enough to ask.” He released you, sitting back. “Okay… Go ahead.” 

“Go?” you asked softly. 

He huffed, rolling his eyes. “Strip, idiot. Take off your clothes.” 

You stared at him in pure shock. “I can’t… I can’t do that.” 

“There’s no point in being shy now. I’ve already seen you in your undies.”

You shook your head fast. “Captain, it’s very late, and-and you’re drunk.” 

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I was drunk the other night and that didn’t stop me from coming my brains out thinking about how you’d look—”

“Please stop!” you interjected in a desperate whine. 

Your reaction made Buggy erupt into hoarse, drunken laughter. 

“You’re… you’re teasing me?” you asked. 

“Of course I am. You didn’t seriously think I wanted to fuck you tonight.” He slumped back into his chair, yawning widely. “Don’t get me wrong, I thought about it but, frankly, I’m exhausted.”

Your shoulders tightened, a pit forming in your stomach at how stupid you felt for assuming he would mean that. You were the one who insisted over and over again that you knew Captain Buggy didn’t want you in that way. To think that he would was nothing but undeserved ego. You couldn’t be surprised. You especially couldn’t be hurt. 

“You gonna finish or what?” Buggy asked, opening one eye. “I’m falling asleep over here.” 

“Sorry, captain,” you said, glad to throw yourself back into the task.  

Buggy didn’t talk very much after that. The liquor set in heavily, and he was half asleep by the time you were done. You helped him get up and into bed, and you very, very, very professionally ignored how hot his bare torso felt, even through your own clothes. You decided after a moment that you could not handle removing his pants, but you took his belt. And then it was a familiar ritual to get him to lay on his side, tucking a pillow behind his head to keep him like that.  

“Is there anything else, Captain Buggy?” you asked as you covered him with his blanket and put a cup of water on the table. 

“You do love me, don’t you?” he asked, his eyelashes fluttering so he could look at you with bloodshot, filmy eyes. Compared to earlier, he just sounded vulnerable, his voice fried and sleepy. 

“Of course I love you, Captain Buggy,” you said, unable to keep yourself from brushing his cheek with your thumb. He sighed, his eyes drooping shut. Part of you wanted to stay and watch over him, to make sure he didn’t throw up and choke, to force him to drink water, to ward off any alcohol induced nightmares. To stay by his side and just be. Be with him. 

It was a silly impulse. He didn’t need that from you, and you doubted he would accept it anyway. So you left, and you hoped he could sleep through the few hours of night that remained.

Despite how late it was, you didn’t feel very tired at all as you climbed into your bunk. You wrapped yourself in a cocoon of blankets—the only way you could stay warm—and stared up at the ceiling. Thinking. Just thinking. Every day was a barrage of new information and activity like you had never experienced, but today felt like more. Being yelled at, being made fun of, but also taken care of. You knew better than to read too far into anything Buggy did or said while he was so drunk, but that didn’t stop you from shivering with a brand new type of warmth and disgust when you thought about it. Pure, blazing, white-hot, and unambiguously terrible because you knew it was stupid. And wrong. And gross.

Captain Buggy teased you about sex things because it was easy, because you reacted so strongly to it. That was the only reason. You knew that. Really, if you thought about it, the way he treated you wasn’t all that different from your dad. At least in his gentler moments. That was kind of the role of a captain, wasn’t it? If you only thought about it like that, then you could condemn and ignore the weird things you felt. 

Huffing with irritation at yourself, you turned onto your side. You were being stupid, it had only been a couple of days. The love you felt was the love of a servant for their master, and it was the only kind of love that actually mattered in any measurable way, not any of the jittery anxious feelings in your gut, or the heartache you felt when you thought about your dad. Love through respect. Love through obedience. Love through service.

And to serve, you needed to sleep.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Restless Man (Part 3)

Summary: Things aren’t good when Frisch shows up at the station with some men but the reader isn’t going anywhere with him...

Pairing: Beau Arlen x reader

Part 1 Part 2

Word Count: 1,600ish

Warnings: language, angst, bodily injury, kidnapping, threats, mentioned minor past minor character deaths

A/N: Spoilers for Big Sky season 3! This will be the final part of this impromptu little series. Enjoy!

_______

To say things had gone to shit would be an understatement. It turned out a police station really wasn’t all that safe when there were no cops in it. Nearly every officer was at the craftsman on the way far edge of town. Frisch had definitely been staying there and planning to have taken you there. 

Unfortunately, with everyone gone, that left the station vulnerable which was exactly what he’d been planning on.

You, Beau and Pop were currently hunkered down in Beau’s office, you and Pop on either side of the door while Beau was passed out on the couch. He was out cold and was not waking up anytime soon. The doctor had prescribed a mild sedative to help him sleep and, well, his timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Pop,” you whispered as you heard Frisch’s hired goons search through the station. “Can you carry Beau?”

He stared at you disapprovingly, furrowing his brow. “Y/N, you can’t go out there.”

“He wants me. You and Beau? He’ll have no problem killing the two of you. If I go out there, can you get him out through the window?” 

“Yes but giving yourself up-”

“I said I’m going out there. I never said I’m going anywhere with him.” You winked and cracked open the door. If Pop could have stopped you before you stood, you knew he would have. Quickly you reached over to Beau’s bookcase, grabbing an item off the shelf. 

This needed to end before they got to Beau and Pop or the people in the back of the station.

You ducked outside with your weapon, three men before you. Two of them you didn’t recognize but smack dab in the middle of the room was Frisch. For some reason, he didn’t seem as frightening as he once did. Maybe it was fifteen years of aging or the training you had but all you saw was the man who tried to hurt someone you cared about. Again.

“Y/N-” You didn’t let him finish before you took a shot at the two men closest to you. The man on the right went down, Frisch diving behind a desk and just barely avoiding you. “You know, I was expecting you’d be angry. But you’re making this more complicated than it has to be.”

You held up the canister and pulled out the pin with your teeth before tossing it across the room. All three men groaned when the flashbang went off. From a far hall, one of the officer’s in the back ran out, helping you get a gun on Frisch and the other man. You kicked away their weapons, cocking your own when Frisch tried to move towards you.

“Why don’t you just do it,” he growled. “Get it over with.”

“You’re not worth the paperwork,” you said, narrowing your eyes. “You got no idea what kind of shit storm you made for-”

“Do it!” he shouted, reminding you for a moment of the man from your home all those years ago. You only cocked your head though and smiled.

“Nah. I want you to live, Henry. I want you to live for a very long time, knowing I love someone very deeply and that that person isn’t you.” Pop came out of the office, helping to secure Frisch before you went over to the man you shot, currently clutching his leg.

He glared at you while trying to put pressure on his thigh, his resolve breaking when you knelt down beside him. “You know he’s a sack of shit, right?”

“I didn’t know you guys were cops when I took this job, I swear,” he said. You nodded, pretending to mull it over. “I’m so screwed.”

“Probably. You talk, I’m sure some kind of deal can be made, though. Think it over while you’re in the hospital. That sicko’s going away for life. I’d advise not following in his footsteps.”

“You,” grumbled Beau. You stood, finding him partially sedated, leaning against the doorframe of his office. He huffed, slipping and sliding down to the ground, clutching his ankle in pain. 

“Better make that ambulance for two.”

“You’re so stupid,” muttered Beau for the thousandth time that evening. You just hummed, flipping through an old magazine in his hospital room. “This is all your fault!”

“I told you to use your crutches,” you sang song. He grabbed your wrist from the bed beside you, green eyes full of fury. “You’re just mad because I used your lucky flashbang.”

“I’m mad for a whole lot, missy,” he growled. You raised your eyebrows, smirking back at him. “Stop making that face.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you teased, still smirking as his nostrils flared. “I knew what I was doing. Risky? Yes, but so was letting three armed men run rampant in the station with people locked up in cells and you out cold. I made a call, the same one you would have made in my position.”

He grumbled and got in your face, hot breath fanning over you. “Never do that again. Swear.”

“I pinky promise.” Beau grumbled, kissing you roughly as he kept you close. He sighed when he inched back, closing his eyes. “I’m okay. Question is are you?”

“I’m better now that he’s locked up and not getting out,” he said as the doctor walked in wearing a frown not too dissimilar to the one Beau had been sporting. “What’s the verdict?”

“You fucked up your ankle, Beau, that’s the verdict.” You crossed your arms, Beau trying to brush it off.

“It can’t be that bad-”

“You need surgery. Then I’m shoving you in a cast until I know your ankle is healed. I told you not to walk on it and it looks like you’ve done nothing but ignore that direction since you’ve left. Your body went through a major trauma. You’re lucky you’re young and healthy and you should have no problem making a full recovery.” The doctor turned to you and sighed. “He won’t be able to stay by himself that first week. You said his home isn’t suitable for crutches?”

You glanced at Beau, seeing his puppy dog eyes. “Alright, Arlen. You can stay with me until you’re better. Don’t think this means we’ve moved in together or anything though. We’re still new to this.”

“Your surgery is planned for the morning. Do me a favor and don’t leave the fucking bed for the rest of today,” he said, his beeper going off. “I’ll be back soon to explain the surgery in more detail. And Arlen? Next time you damn well listen to me.”

Beau gave a mini salute, chuckling after the doctor was gone. “Surprised he wasn’t more pissed at me.”

“I’m guessing you know him based on that wildly unprofessional interaction.”

“Oh we go way back,” said Beau, scooting over on the bed. “Sit with me.”

You crammed yourself in, Beau sliding his arm over your shoulders. “So you’re all better cause Frisch is locked up, just like that.”

He shrugged, waggling his hand. “Maybe not all better. I promise when I am stuck at home on my ass or on desk duty because of this fucking ankle, I will make time and talk to someone too.”

“Good. I don’t want you to try and do it on your own like after what happened with your old partner. It’s not good for you,” you said, massaging his scalp, Beau’s eyes fluttering closed. “I’m going to stay tonight.”

“You don’t have to. I’m sure the station is going nuts.”

“They can survive. We need a moment,” you said, Beau absently curling into your touch. “So. I know last night’s dinner wasn’t amazing but if you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?”

“Man, I could go for a greasy burger and fries. And a strawberry milkshake. And some of your mashed potatoes. Those were, despite what you may think, the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.” 

“You were literally starving for a week.” 

“But the were so good,” he laughed. “Would you mind running home and getting me some?”

“For you, bud? Sure,” you said, kissing his temple. “I’ll get your other food and bring you some clothes since I’m sure you’ll be here a few days. Apparently you’re a troublemaker who doesn’t listen.”

“I wonder who I got that from,” he teased, resting his head on your shoulder, closing his eyes. 

“Take a nap while I’m gone,” you whispered, sliding out from beside him, tugging his blanket up over his waist. “We’ll call Emily when I get back, okay?”

“Oh crap,” he said, running his hand over his mouth. “Is she okay? I haven’t talked to her-”

“I know. I called her yesterday after we found you, let her know you’re safe. As far as she’s concerned, you’ve been resting today and will call her tonight.”

“Thank you,” he said with a soft and sleepy smile. “You know your relationship with her will change when she finds out.”

“She has a mother Beau. I will be what she needs me to be. She’s old enough to make that decision for herself,” you said. He nodded, leaning back in bed. 

“I love that you care about her,” he said, almost as if to himself. You gave him a quick kiss, Beau smiling when you crossed the room for the door. “Hey, Y/L/N. Soon as I’m back on my feet, I’m taking you a proper date like a gentleman.”

“I’d like that,” you said, lingering by the door. “Beau?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really glad you’re home again.”

“Me too, baby.” You shook your head, Beau laughing. “What I’d say?”

“New pet name, I don’t do baby.”

“Missy?” 

“I’m drinking your milkshake for that,” you said, walking out the door, gratefully to the sound of his laughter.

_______

[tokuvivor]

Well, last night, we had the first of three Halloween Movie Nights for this month, all with a broad supernatural/parallel universe theme to them. So, the highlights:

Skeleton Dance

Me: “That’s gotta hurt” (the cats pulling at each other’s tongues)

@writebackatya falling into the well and @tealottie pulling him back out

The stream cut out, so we didn’t get to finish the short. But if you want to check it out, you can do so right here.

Magica’s Shadow War

The fact that the episode was the original inspiration for Lena

Everyone wanting to smash Magica

@spamtoon: “i fucking forgot about 87 poe”

@puffyducks: “it’s ok the writers forget about 87 poe too”

Gyro’s invention being a camera with a spotlight

Puffy: “they just fucking flashbanged her”

Will: “me when Webby kicked the flash grenade back to Gandra”

Scrooge’s girly apron

The guy at the airport (Gus Goose?)

Scrooge White and the Seven Nephews (courtesy of @shewhowantsmouseears)

Evermore/nevermore

Scrooge covering all the bases with the shadow’s pronouns

Scrooge wearing a moose head

Me: “Keel moose and squirrel”

Mel: “They had to make a moose joke, given how her voice is clearly based on Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle” (Since June Foray voiced both Natasha Fatale and ‘87 Magica.)

Magica’s shadow looking like Madam Mim because of the hair (plus some lore droppage from Mel and @emeraldcity1900)

“Magica’s raven” That’s her brother!

AUGH

Launchpad!

Will: “Do you think every family member immediately groans to themselves whenever Scrooge starts his sentences with “I made my fortune””

Several people: “Yes”

Surprise Webby!

@alex31624: “is like... some shadow war...”

Endless drama with the dime (as usual)

Caro: “I was hoping Scrooge would SHPEDEHOOING the dime out of her hands”

The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!

Lena time!

Scrooge in a deep sleep

Lena: “Aaaah…”

*theme song plays*

Will and Caro discussing how the theme song playing would impact the characters in real time

@spamtoon: “hi mark”

Webby’s long-ass speech about Scrooge

Magica being a terrible person

Blink-and-you-miss-it animation error where Lena isn’t wearing shoes

Gavin subplot!

Louie’s Kids

Darkwing Duck and Paperinik references (leading into Donkey Kong reference)

Will: “And then there’s Della! She’s dead.”

Sword horse!

Huey and Dewey being jerks to Louie in this episode

Puffy: “dewey time travel adventure is a touching story about him spending christmas with his missing mother and then louie time travel story is him just going to a 23rd century film set”

@godfrey-the-chaos-duck: “huey needed a time travel story”

Puffy: “I think huey experiencing any time travel would cause him to spiral”

Louie finding out Gavin’s conning them (and that his name is Gavin)

Gavin being like Bradley Uppercrust III

“Bigfoot, you just poked the bear.”

“The power…the body…”

Everyone losing their shit at Lena’s dream scene

Louie beating Gavin

“i win”

“Now go back! From whence you cameee!”

Everyone losing their shit again at the last scene

A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!

The fact that it’s a peak episode

Violet!!!!

Lena’s song and everyone else’s reactions (including Louie’s “TF did I just watch” face)

Friendship bracelets!

Violet being relatable AF

The fact that Boyd and Gosalyn should’ve gotten friendship bracelets in the show

“Let’s eat pure sugar!”

Us watching this episode coinciding with the server’s one-year anniversary

“Me!” “…Sleep.” (plus Dewey’s offended face)

“YOU’RE IRRITABLITY!”

The boys and Violet sleeping

Glowy stars ✨

The fact that we should’ve gotten a second sleepover episode

The sword horse returns!

The finale foreshadowing

What would Boyd dream of? Does he even sleep? (Plus this incorrect quote from Will)

The sword horse disappearing without so much as a sound effect for it

Dewey High!

Dewey’s love interest (queer allegory)

Puffy: “bro thinks she’s bill cipher”

Godfrey: “if they ever made a deal all of reality would collapse”

Cat Louie!

“Meow. Everyone pat my head.”

Wolf Lena!

WHY HUEY WHY

Seriously, long-legged Huey is cursed AF

Phooey!

Whale Launchpad!

“My dream is just to read more.” “Awesome!”

@hueberryshortcake: “the bond between a girl and her librarian is unbreakable”

Now for Lena’s dream

She looks cool in green, though

Lena would make jokes about Poe

Everyone in their dream forms rescuing Lena

Lena and Webby’s conversation (and the feels that come with it)

Mel: “friendship is magic, the ponies were right”

Alex: “friendship is the best magic”

Magica is dead! (Welllll…)

She actually just lost her magic. Which explains her white feathers. (LOL what a loser)

These drawings from Puffy (minus Violet, she will be added later):

Magica trying (and failing) to do a Darkwing-esque speech at the end

Ghoul Friend

Adorable or horrible style? (It was a joke, though.)

Zombie Goofy!

Screaming Squirrel

Goofy Holler!

“You wouldn’t hit a mouse with glasses, would ya?” (Also the only line in the short, which says a lot about how you don’t necessarily need dialogue to tell a story.)

Goofy died because Max failed the perfect cast

Coraline

Alex: “Coraline won, and everyone leaves”

Keith David being in the movie

Looking ahead to Coco, and talking about how much we will (or will not) cry

@ducklooney: “Skeletor robot on motorbike!” (Wybie)

(About Coraline’s dad)

Puffy:

Will: “Are ya winning dad?”

Blue boy in a painting

Puffy: “woah you know who ELSE is a blue boy in a painting”

I ❤️ Mulch

Coraline’s parents being too absorbed in their work to pay attention to her

The fact that her friends in Michigan gave her a whole billboard to say goodbye to her (courtesy of @story-blossoms-ducks)

Kangaroo mice!

Puffy: “woah.. mirror dimension... just li”

“wait everyone that watched infinity train with me is gone”

The food in the other dimension looking fantastic (even though it’s not real)

The mice are friends

Mr. B’s confusion over Coraline’s name

Puffy: “we're not even in the scary world and everyone is still a fuckin creepy weirdo”

Will: “yeah, isn’t it great?” “they’re good people. Just weird”

The fact that everyone is telling Coraline to not go through the door, yet she still does

Will: “I mean they had mango milkshakes”

Puffy: “wait you’re right I hadn’t considered that”

The garden in the shape of Coraline’s face (feat. the mantis cart)

Mouse circus!

How Lena would fit into the role of Coraline

Keith David is the cat!

Me: “That is a lot of Scotties”

Brain bleach moment with Other Spink and Forcible

Shit gradually will start to go down (Coraline given buttons for her eyes)

John Linnell of They Might Be Giants being the Other Father’s singing VA

Cocoa beetles

DuckLooney: “"You will eat ze bugs and you will be happy."”

Puffy: “-the lion king”

“Bad.” “Lost.” “Bad.” “Lost.”

Coraline and her pillow parents

CAT STARE

Mel: “dammit, beldam, spit will out right now”

Breaking the mirror=seven years’ bad luck

Will: “And she’s hanging out with a black cat who’s always crossing her path”

Into the trap!

Puffy: “girl that is NOT your mother”

@kaitosduckmania: “she is mommy tho”

Coraline trying to collect the ghost eyes (and thinking she’s out of time when it’s still going) (shoutout to the cat on the assist with the last eye)

People having the hots for the Other Mother’s spider form

Destroy the key!

Webby Wybie to the rescue!

That’s all folks! (Not really, the sound was messing up)

Will’s cat watching with him

Puffy and Mel with a Simpsons reference (We’re Sending Our Love Down the Well)

Why is Mr. B’s skin blue?

Will: ““So your sister’s dead. But good news; her soul is no longer held captive by the spider woman.””

It was a good movie. Very unique.

[slocumjoe]

how would fo4 crushing companions react to an unintentionally touchy sole? for example they hold their hand without thinking when leading them somewhere, lean slightly against them while waiting, etc

(also if you dont mind could you write the one for x6 post railroad ending instead of sole being director?)

ohohohoho yesssssss

I love prompts like these because I get to inflict suffering

Companions (most of which are touch-starved) react to a touchy-touchy Sole

Cait; At first, totally thinks Sole is just fucking with her, like...teasing. So even if she's initially startled everytime, quickly recovers. Might respond with her own, rougher touches. Sole gently puts their hand on her shoulder, she gently punches theirs. She's conflicted on it, though. Obviously, being touched is a bad thing in Cait's book...but Sole is a good thing. So...what's she supposed to think, here? She does find their sudden clingliness cute. Teases them for it.

It's not until she processes that Sole is touching her that shit hits the fan.

Okay, shit, Sole is touching her. Holding her hands, pressing up against her. Okay. Fuck. What does that mean? Is it flirting? Shit way to flirt, if they want to get going in the sheets, they should just say it. After This Moment, any touch is going to be like a flashbang to her. Might start leaning away. She's confused now, she isn't sure what this is or what she wants from it.

Curie; Crushing or not, really likes the touchy-touchy! It's new sensations for her synth body, and Curie is touchy with everyone. Getting to be touchy-touchy with her favorite person? Wonderful! She lavishes in the affection and probably returns it tenfold. If Sole brushes hands together, she'll grab theirs and hold it tight. Curie isn't a shy person. Her stomach might be filled with butterflies, and her heart does some weird stuff, and she loses all control of her facial expression, but Curie is Curie. She lacks the mental illness nerf everyone else has. There will be a moment where she questions the intentions, and she'll be sad at the thought of Sole not meaning anything by it, but Curie is nothing if not optimistic.

Danse; If you listen carefully, you can hear the Windows shutdown noise. Danse all but lives in a giant metal husk. Even if he didn't, people don't touch him anyway. So. Sole? Touching him? He bricks. Hard system reset, absolute crash. Shit is frying up there in that thick skull.

The second time it happens, the Reaction is worse. Third time, Worse. This multiplies until Danse starts getting used to it. Does that mean things go well for him? No! This is Danse, here! He convinces himself they don't mean anything by it. Even if they did, which they don't, nothing could happen. He's either their C.O, or a synth. And besides, they deserve better anyway. Danse doesn't think highly of himself, and he never has.

No matter what happens, he lets Sole do whatever they please. Danse is a teddy bear thats never gotten to fulfill his function as a teddy bear. He'll be dammed if he ever admits it, but good God, does Danse need it. It's a rush of euphoria. This man has been kept in Power Armor for years. And it's Sole. If they went octopus on him and didn't let go, a part of him would be screaming, yes, but everything else would be melting, too relieved to protest.

Deacon; Fully leans into it. Thinks their touchy-touchy is funny, even if he's freaking out. Will walk while dramatically swinging their hands around. You know couples at amusement parks? Or, really, couples in any public setting? He does that. And thing is, Deacon is not a touchy-touchy person. He'd rather not, actually. But Sole likes it, and the dirty looks they get from people when Deacon is condemning Sole to the Couple Shuffle (iykyk) is too good to pass up.

Internally worried, obviously. Again, mental illness nerf. He would like touching Sole in a more...personal way. Not sex, just...it's the intention. Holding hands is one thing. Holding hands with a friend is another. Holding hands with a partner is a whole other beast. But Deacon isn't sure he'd actually want to pursue anything. Ideally, he'd stop this, keep his distance. But also ideally, he'd knock his own shit off and just be upfront...he's not too keen on either idea. Hey, what if we give each other piggyback rides?

Gage; Also goes Nope, but his nope goes in several directions, compared to the other Nope's. Gage doesn't trust like that, for one. It's different with Sole, yeah, but whenever Gage is presented with something new, he throws all the caution he has at it. He trusts Sole. He thinks them his better half, his partner in crime. But...this is weird. Objectively. Touching a guy like Gage is a weird thing to do. Once he picks up that they don't notice they're doing it, calms down. Then panics for a completely different reason.

Why the fuck is the Overboss touching him?

Gage starts doing the math. Okay, maybe they're just touchy when comfortable. That doesn't mean anything. It's definitely weird. But why are they touching him? Gage isn't the most cuddly person. That's what the fucking rusty spike armor is for. Sole doesn't care. Sole presses into him, brushes their fingers against him, puts their bedroll next to his. Are they...like...anxious, or some shit? Is this a Symptom? Should he be worried? Where Danse has Windows shutdown, Gage has a few notes of the Jaws theme.

At no point in this process does he allow himself to think about how it makes him feel, because Gage has better shit to do (no he doesnt), he doesn't feel anything for them (yes he does), and even if he did (he does), Sole doesn't mean anything by it (Sole has been flirting with him for weeks).

Hancock; Honestly, Hancock started touching first. He's a physical guy. So, Sole also being touchy-touchy doesn't phase him. He's certainly happy to see that they feel comfortable with him, and want him close, but for once, Hancock doesn't suffer the mental illness nerf.

YET. Because whoops, once he examines why Sole might be touching him, we're off to the fucking races!

When people touch Hancock, they're usually hinting at something. Sole either is, or isn't doing that. If they are, Hancock has to consider if he goes down that path. Do they hook up? Hancock would prefer more than that. What if Sole does too? Okay, does he even deserve Sole? Back up, now. Say Sole isn't trying to get in his pants. He still wants them. They're dangling right in front of him, and he can't have them. Youch. Does he stop touching them, ask them to stop touching him? Should he take what he can get?

Ah, hell.

MacCready; Much like Hancock, probably started touching first. But, MacCready's touchy-touchy is more like Cait's. Playful, teasing, that thing. Shoulder-punching, flipping their hat, maybe even tickling if he and Sole are really close. MacCready has issues, but not the kind that, like, Danse and Hancock share.

Oh man, Danse and Hancock would hate to hear that. I should really write that comparison essay.

Despite this, once Sole starts touching him just to touch, the play-fighting stops. He likes them, and they're giving some signals that they like him. So, he might start returning the little touches. Not intentionally, either. Reach over and wipe dirt off their face, slip ammo into their pockets, gently bump them to get their attention. The only companion who doesn't read into it. He doesn't really notice it at all. It just starts happening, and later down the line, after he and Sole get together, does he think about how natural and normal it is to touch them and be touched.

Nick; I don't think Nick has a ton of sensations. At least, not in his body's current state, old and torn up. He'll notice Sole touching him, but he can't really feel it. You'd think that would lessen the agony.

Nick wants nothing more than to not be in this body, but he's kind of stuck. And Sole keeps touching him, in this body that he can't feel them in. It's like big glass wall between them. He can feel them touching the glass, but not their hand. Whereas everyone else gets the benefit of contact, Nick only gets reminded of what contact might feel like.

It's like a theater performance, mimicking something from the past. It doesn't help that all of those memories of touch are of Jenny. Thinking of 'your' dead fiance when your current flame is touching you is not a good omen for starting a relationship.

Honestly...I think Nick wouldn't want to be touched. He wouldn't turn them away, tell them to stop, because they're seeking comfort. But he couldn't enjoy it. Not physically, and so not emotionally.

Piper; Piper isn't touch-starved, averse, or deeply insecure like other companions. So, she has a pretty normal reaction. Piper pauses the first time it happens, and has that moment of 'omigosh they touched meeee'. Feels really stupid for it. But she's a young woman in love, damnit, if she has hearts in her eyes for while after, following Sole like a lost puppy, that's her business.

Piper knows that Sole is doing it subconsciously, but she also takes little steps forward herself. So, she might, say, play with their hair absently, or ask to braid it. Or offer to do their makeup, if they wear any. She might fix or adjust their clothes/armor if it needs it. Little touches with the benefit of the doubt. If Sole escalates, she's escalating. Will throw her legs over their lap, tuck herself under their arm, come up behind them and rest her chin on their shoulder.

Piper reads into it only a tiny amount. She almost goes crazy over it, but stops herself, realizes that trying to analyze Sole and their feelings is only going to complicate things. So, she just does her thing, and hopes it goes somewhere nice from there.

Preston; Much like Piper and MacCready, has a pretty normal response. He doesn't notice it at first, takes someone else to point out how touchy Sole is for him to realize. Preston is, again, canonically not a touchy person, but Sole's contact is quick and light, so he's not uncomfortable with it. Might even return it briefly, like patting them on the far shoulder if they lean into him.

Interestingly, Preston is the only companion to really think about his own feelings about it in a healthy way. He makes sure to keep himself objective and rational. Okay, he has feelings for Sole. Sole keeps touching him. He would like for that to be charged, but the only way to know that is to ask. Preston isn't ready to ask that, so he doesn't need to worry about it. He can have his feelings without knowing if they're reciprocated. He can deal with it when he's ready.

Look, Preston has put up with a lot of BS in his life. He's going to avoid making his lovelife just as difficult.

X6-88; Sole touches him for the first time. X6-88 refrains from throwing them across the room, as he is supposed to, typically. Sole does it again. X6 refrains again. This continues for way too long without any developments.

X6 eventually stops himself and goes "I should probably think about that, huh?"

Starts with himself. X6-88 experiences physical and mental sensations around and about Sole. That would aptly be considered "having feelings." Is he in...love? How would he know? Maybe its indigestion. Alright. He may or may not have romantic feelings for Sole. That's not helpful. He cares about them, he knows that. But is that the love those Pre-War musicians never shut up about?

What about Sole and their insistence on physical contact? They're a little colder than he is, coursers run warm. They move differently, too, more stilted, there's hesitancy. Coursers move like water, with no pause or consideration. So, even something like a simple tap is alien to him, because he finds Sole completely alien, in this regard.

He's going to try and ignore it until Sole does something else that throws his head all out of wack. But for now, just...deeply confused. Has so much else to process first.

[positivelybeastly]

Do you think you can explain in explicit detail why Percy's version of beast doesn't work?

All right, so, hopefully you can forgive me for taking a bit of time to come to this ask, because it's quite the subject matter, and it's one I take very seriously. I want you to have a good answer or no answer at all.

In order to explain why Percy's Beast doesn't work, we first need to establish a continuity for Beast, and why and how he works.

Which is why it's a good thing I have a 14 page Google Doc that goes into detail about all of this, which I'm going to drag and drop here:

Beast in the Krakoan era is a fascist mutant supremacist, who believes that the ends justify the means; he's cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. He is without nuance - and it's not just me saying that, that's both the writer and the characters saying that. He has, apparently, always been evil, and all it took was power for his true self to come out.

This does not jive with any of his characterisation prior to this point. Don't believe me? Let's deep dive.

Hank McCoy was born in Dunfee, Illinois to two very normal human parents. His mutation was apparent from the moment he was born, due to his father taking an enormous dose of radiation after an accident at the nuclear power plant he worked at, and while it would occasionally raise an eyebrow, he was able to hide what he was for the first 15-17 years of his life (Marvel ages are vague, but Hank is usually portrayed as the oldest of the O5, so we'll just say he was 17). He was recruited for the X-Men by Charles Xavier after his parents were taken hostage by a Z-list supervillain called the Conquistador, who wanted Hank to steal components from his father's place of work.

I should note that already, pre-X-Men, Hank did not believe in giving obvious supervillains nuclear power plant components, and gave the Conquistador a box full of flashbangs that disoriented him and his goons before defeating them in a fight. He did the right thing, at potential great personal cost to him and his parents, whom he loves very much.

Xavier then proceeded to step in, and, depending on the continuity, wiped the minds of everyone Hank had ever loved of the memory of him, so as to keep him 'safe,' or wiped the mind of Hank's first love, a girl called Jennifer Nyles, who is consistently depicted as being the woman who encouraged Hank to step out of his shell and do something with his obvious natural physical and intellectual gifts. Either way, this quite irritated Hank, and mere hours after he had put on his X-Men uniform, he was already about to fight the Professor over an egregious breach of mental privacy and security. But because he believed in what the Professor espoused, he let it slide.

It's worth noting that this mindwipe was seemingly undone later, because there are comics released both before and after Mike Carey's Origins issue that depict Hank having a deeply loving relationship with his parents. This will be important for later.

Now, a lot of people love to point to Uncanny X-Men #8 as the first evidence that Hank has always been a supervillain in disguise, and while I think it's a little egregious to point to any issue of any 60s comic book and say that anyone acts in a way that is sensible, moral, or decent, it's worth noting that the act in question, dialling up Unus the Untouchable's powers to a point where he can't control them, is in direct response to Unus attempting to defeat/kill the rest of the X-Men, or at the very least, hand them over to Magneto (who, let's not forget, in the 60s was a homicidal maniac happy to nuke entire countries). Is the response of threatening Unus with a slow death by starvation disproportionate? Yeah, it is.

Scott and the rest of the X-Men seem completely fine with it.

So, now you have to ask yourself - do we accept the morality of the time, and assume that Hank was basically justified to do what he did, to save his team and stop a dangerous mutant, or do we judge him for acting like a supervillain would, and thus everyone else on the team is fine with it? Iunno. That's a personal judgement. It's 60s X-Men, it's shit. I basically hardly regard it as canon, and given that any time anyone comes on to the Reddit board looking to start X-Men gets waved away from starting there, it clearly isn't regarded as very well written, is it? Maybe we regard it as a point for him to grow past? After all the very next issue, Cyclops starts a fight with the Avengers over jack fuck nothing, just because Professor Xavier told him to, and he clearly outgrew that.

All right, so let's speed forward a little bit. Hank's been an X-Man for around 3 years when he gets a job with the Brand Corporation, a scientific research company in Long Island. People love to bring up the fact that it's a subsidiary of Roxxon, who are notoriously evil, or that it has its own nefarious plans going on, but we don't judge people who work at Cat Chow for the fact that Nestle is fucking evil, do we? Hank didn't know. He was a 20 year old scientist with budding aspirations of helping the world in ways he couldn't with the X-Men. So, what was he researching?

Now, this is where we get into a bit of a sticky wicket, because this has been retconned to hell, but in the original version of events, set in the early 1970s, Hank is working as a scientist at Brand when he finds out that the Secret Empire want to steal his research into genetic mutation. Understandable thing for him to want to research, given his father's accident and his own obvious mutation, and an understandable thing for the Empire to want to steal, especially given what his research had resulted in.

In the process of Hank's research, he manages to isolate the chemical/hormonal extract that causes mutation - naturally occurring, it's also the basis for MGH, or Mutant Growth Hormone, which later becomes used by humans all around the world to obtain temporary mutant powers. But this can't be attributed to Hank, especially since he goes to great efforts to destroy all of his research, rather than let it fall into the hands of spies.

Now, this is the point that everyone likes to point to as the moment that Hank reveals his true colours, as a true mad scientist, a Jekyll hiding a Hyde - except that even just hours after his mutation, even in the midst of a rage at his own stupidity, Hank attacks Professor Maddicks, one of the Empire spies, and tries to kill him. He has him dead to rights, he's strangling him, it would be easy.

He stops. He can't bring himself to do it.

It's worth noting that Hank already starts to show signs of a marked personality change here. Gone is the long winded, stuffy, Superman curled Beast of the 60s - now we have the grey furred Beast of the 70s, soon to turn blue due to the limitations of comic book printing. He cuts himself off from the X-Men, starts to fall into depressive slumps and fits of mania, which is a personality pattern he falls into regularly, leading to a lot of people, including myself and Grant Morrison, to consider Hank bipolar. Obviously, here, it's exacerbated by his mutation and his extreme circumstances, but it's something he comes back to, again and again. It also explains why he decides to attack Iron Man, also investigating Brand, and nearly kills him.

It's also worth noting that this is the first appearance of the Beast - not just Hank's codename, his mutation has now given him an animal bloodlust that he struggles to keep control of, not unlike Wolverine. This is something to keep in mind because it helps frame Hank's self-hatred, which is often brought up but not really examined as a character trait, and especially later on, it becomes clear that Hank hates himself for a good number of reasons.

For one, he makes dumb, impulsive decisions, usually with the best of intentions, and he chews himself out for one he made already, turning himself into a furry monster. For another, he hates the part of himself that wants to hurt people. To call forward many, many years into the future, Hank doesn't believe in the law of the jungle. He believes in art, and literature, and music. He believes in humanity. He desperately wants to maintain his own, and he hates his mutation because it literally makes him less human every time, it makes his impulses harder to control, it makes him dangerous - and oh, it does make him dangerous.

And here's the thing. Beast nearly kills Iron Man (or at least, he thinks he has, Mastermind is in play), and the moment he realises what he's done, he screams in anguish and runs away, hating himself. "Humans can't catch me there." He believes himself to be less than human - not because he's a mutant, but because he regressed to animal behaviour and thinks he's killed someone. What a monster, right? What a villain!

"During that fight, I saw his face up close - and got a hint of what's behind it. I saw a soul in torment - and I can't play God with that."

All right, so now we have to take a sideways trip, and go to X-Men Unlimited vol 2 #10, which depicts Hank going home to his parents right after he turned grey. It's honestly a kind of hard read, because if the Beast's rampage was his mania ramped up to eleven, this is his depression ramped up to twelve. He staggers through the streets like a ghost, unwilling to let anyone see what he looks like. "I could have been someone, Jennifer. A lonely high school kid with big, big fears and big, big dreams, I could have done something really wonderful. I could have become anyone, done almost anything. But now, Jennifer, now just look at me."

The story is called Ghost in the Graveyard, and it's aptly named because this is the moment Hank grows into who he's truly meant to be. His ego, which drove him to consume his research and nearly kill, is dead. He believes he is worthless, he believes he's fit only to flit between the waking moments of the living when they aren't looking. "What would you think of me if I was to tell you how terrified I am of everything right now, Jennifer?"

He saves his hometown, incidentally. Even while sleeping for days, depressed, barely eating, he still has enough curious spirit and intelligence to work out that the radiation coming from the bodies of people who worked in the same plant as his father has contaminated the water table, the soil, even the townsfolk. Jennifer tells him they should go to the newspapers, and he tells her he can't. He can't bear to. He can't bear to be seen. He reveals his appearance to her, and she tries to kiss him softly on the forehead, but he still can't bear it. He runs.

"Perhaps, then, a ghost is nothing more than a memory. A memory of who we once were, before we become what we must."

And this is the moment that Hank McCoy decides to run back to New York and join the Avengers.

Out of a moment of sheer despair, out of a moment of shame and guilt, out of a moment of self-hatred so deep he can barely get out of bed, he grasps onto hope, and the desire to do good, and he does it. He goes to New York, and he decides he's going to be a good man. And he is. He's a very good man.

He saves the Avengers from the Stranger at his team tryout. He becomes a master of disguise so adept he passes himself off as the President of the United States and gives a speech that makes the Squadron Supreme question their own spurious morality. He saves Henry Pym's life from a super-microbe. He's almost singlehandedly the reason that Patsy Walker becomes Hellcat, a storied superhero in her own right. He's the one who reaches out to Simon Williams, Wonder Man, former villain, and becomes his best friend in the whole world. He becomes the third mutant Avenger (technically first, depending on Wanda and Pietro's current genetic status), and the first X-Man to cross over. He becomes one of the most popular, celebrated, and beloved mutants on the planet.

Yet, he still cares enough for his friends that the moment the X-Men need him, even though they don't think to call him, he puts it all at risk. He catches the Hellfire Club's police call during the middle of the Dark Phoenix Saga, wipes the tapes, and abandons his post as a prestigious Avenger, a position Cyclops says he loves . . . to be with his original team. He's integral to them standing a chance against her, fashioning the diadem that immobilises Jean and gives Cyclops and Xavier the chance to shut away the Dark Phoenix for a short time - enough that Jean, or the Phoenix, or whatever is walking around in that story, can put together a plan to deal with herself.

He gets zapped to an alien spaceship, and the first damn thing he does is make a Wizard of Oz joke, then he calls Lilandra out for lack of due process.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, Hank becomes one of the most popular heroes in-universe, instantly recognisable and on first name terms with almost every hero. He goes through his hardships. His own mother struggles with his mutation, calling him a freak in a moment of despair, only to realise that no matter what he looks like, he's still her boy - still the man who throws himself in the direct path of Professor Power's attack to save a child.

One of my favourites is Avengers 209. Hank's girlfriend is poisoned by a Skrull, and he's forced to go back in time and fetch the two halves of the Resurrection Stone back to save her. One of the pieces is in the hands of a concentration camp prisoner in 1945, who keeps using it to try and hold on to his dead family, and Hank breaks down into sobbing tears as he begs in Yiddish for the man to please let go and be at peace. His heart breaks for a man he's never met because his pain is so mighty and so vast and it's so damned unfair.

But even when he has the Resurrection Stone in his hands, and he can use it to save Vera, he destroys it instead, rather than give it to the Skrull and risk the power being in any one man's hand. He puts his own wants and desires to the side, and hopes that another man smarter than him can save Vera, who's put in suspended animation and later saved by Daimon Hellstrom. Hank joins the Defenders at around this point, and goes through quite a bit, including quite the humbling as he realizes that he may be cock of the walk, but he's not yet a leader - or maybe never a leader.

One of the accusations I've seen aimed at Hank is that he resents Cyclops for being made leader of the X-Men, and I honestly don't see where this comes from, but it's not something I think has any truth to it. Hank almost actively avoids leadership where he can, because he knows he can't make hard decisions like who to leave behind, who to let die, who to hurt. Indeed, the one time we see him lead the X-Men, it's in Grant Morrison's New X-Men, where the strain of it causes him to break down and turn to Kick just to keep going. X-Club, a team of his creation, is barely in its infancy before he leaves, and it's pretty clear that Beast just . . . doesn't, care, about being a leader. He knows he's not good at it. He knows he can't inspire like Captain America. He knows he can't strategise like Cyclops. He knows that.

It's also at this point that Hank is called out in public for not doing enough for mutants, coasting on his celebrity and acting the clown - and he takes on the criticism. He becomes more politically active, forming an advocacy group. As we learn later on in Secret Avengers, he also becomes fast friends with a secret mutant politician by the name of Leonard Gary, and he's present at multiple meetings of Congress where Lenny blocks Senator Kelly's anti-mutant legislation. Way later on, he helps Lenny push through workers rights laws during Fear Itself, and makes sure that he can give a speech inspiring the nation at a time when they needed it most.

Now we move on to X-Factor, where Hank has his ups and downs, but it's significant that it starts with him being publicly discriminated against by no less than 15 universities for his visible mutation. His response? To call them a bunch of racists, strip off his clothes, and tell them to go hang. He doesn't descend into self-pity, he gets angry and embarrasses them the only way he knows how. But it's interesting, because Hank starts the series wanting to teach, and in a way, he gets to do precisely that. Enter young mutants Fire Fist, Boom Boom, Skids, Wiz Kid, Artie Maddicks, Leech, and Rictor.

Rictor is the kid that Hank becomes closest to. He teaches him to read, encourages him in learning how to use his powers, plays with him - when his intelligence is reduced by a quirk of mutation, he's still aware and good enough that he attacks someone scaring Julio. He fucks up a ton in this series, especially with Boom Boom, with him and Iceman being downright dicks to her, and there's no real excuse for it - but it's kind of important that Hank wants to learn to teach, and he has to learn. He's not immediately good at it. He softens. He gets better. In fact, in an alternate universe not dissimilar to 616, Forge remarks that no-one was quite as patient and as good a teacher as Hank.

Then we come to the 90s, where Hank is faced with his biggest challenge yet - the Legacy Virus - and his biggest moral failing yet - Threnody. Now, this is where I kinda have to call out the Cerebrocast, because there's this narrative that Hank is an Avenger narc who will sell mutants down the river at the drop of a hat, and I'm fairly certain it stems from the moment when Hank surrenders Threnody over to Sinister.

It's not a great look, tbh. I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't touch Sinister with a thirty foot barge pole. I certainly wouldn't leave a vulnerable woman with him. But Sinister is an excellent manipulator, and he plays Hank like a fiddle here. He points out that Hank won't cross certain moral and ethical boundaries. "Admitting it, and despising the choice are the first steps toward changing the indecision that has ruled Xavier's roost of late." Sinister is very canny about playing Hank's fear of inferiority, of not being good enough to save everyone, of not living up to his potential, against him. It's also worth noting that Rogue and Iceman don't seem to disagree with Hank's decision, and while I believe he's acting as field leader here, these are not people who would let something like an 'order' stop them from doing what they feel is right.

It kills Hank to do this. He feels dirty, unwashed, like a piece of shit on humanity's shoe, for doing this. He risks Infectia's - or rather, Josephine's - powers infecting all of them with the Legacy Virus she's dying of, because he needs to do something human, something good, something compassionate, or else all he's left with is the bad. "Henry McCoy holds her, tears flowing freely, not just for the loss of another life, but for what Infectia's death has meant to him. For in granting her last wish, Hank contradicted the scientist in himself for the sake of the man."

What a villain, right?

It's also worth noting that we see Threnody again, in X-Men #34. She's lucid, in control of her powers, vibrant. "Threnody, dear lass! I am both pleased, relieved, and - I must confess - a bit surprised to see you so lucid? No offence meant, of course." "And none taken, Dr. McCoy. When we first met, I was rather a headcase, wasn't it? I want you to know, Doctor, that going with Sinister was the best thing that could have happened to me."

Hmmmmm.

"I've thought about you and worried quite a bit over the decision we made to allow Sinister to take you with him. Seeing you here and doing so well, rather uplifts my spirits - but it beggars the question, why do you stay?" "Dr. McCoy. You're sweet. But isn't this a better life than the one I had?"

HMMMMMMMM.

"Thren, I'm concerned about you. You seem to be playing a very dangerous game here. I cannot in good conscience allow you to stay here and play in this danger zone any longer." "You have no choice, Hank. There's knowledge and glory [here] . . . and I want that, too."

HMMMMM???

All right, whatever, let's keep it moving, on to the point where Hank undergoes his most drastic change yet.

It's the year 2001. Hank is on the X-Treme X-Men team, and they're searching for Destiny's diaries foretelling the future. Putting himself in harm's way to try and save Psylocke's life, telling her to go on and leave him, he's forced to watch as Vargas kills her - and poses her on top of his own fatally wounded body for the rest of the team to find. Barely hanging on to life, he sits in a Spanish hospital room, until Sage decides to take matters into her own hands.

"But despite your appearance and the name they call you I will assume you are a man and not a beast . . . and that you have a soul - !"

"He has a soul, padre. Bright and shining as the stars."

She jumpstarts the next evolution of Hank McCoy, and he becomes feline. He loses a finger on each hand. His animal instincts explode into the forefront of his brain. His hormones are blazing. His brain is on fire. He's doing the best he can to cope, but it's - hard. Yet he still finds it within himself to be there for others first of all. He mentors Beak, serving as an example of a physical mutant who's made something of himself. He tries to counsel Scott and Jean through their ailing marriage. He reaches out to Emma, and they become fast friends. Meanwhile, Genosha burns, students are killed, and Cassandra Nova rips him to pieces and picks on those fears of devolution that have been skirting in the back of his mind for decades, bringing them right back to the front of his mind.

"Remember when you looked almost human in the mirror? Then it started. The fall from man to ape, from ape to feline. Poor ugly Henry McCoy. There's no place for you in ANY mutant future. You're a devolver! Zoo animal. Stumbling backwards down the tree of life."

This, coupled with Trish Tilby's decision to break up with him over allegations of bestiality from her coworkers, shatters his psyche, and he arguably never recovers until his body changes again in All-New X-Men. He covers up his body almost all of the time, he overdresses in human clothes and uniforms that are a stark contrast to his old X-shorts, he becomes more verbose, more mature, more bipolar, more depressed, more lonely. And yet, even through all of this, with the help of his friends, especially Jean Grey, he starts to recover. He starts to become more like his old self.

In Astonishing X-Men, he even starts to show a bit more skin and fur as time goes on and he gets further away from Cassandra Nova's attack. And then it gets worse. The mutant cure. "I used to have fingers, a mouth you could kiss." Cassandra Nova, living on in his friend Emma Frost's guilt, attacks him again, and pushes him further, causing him to feast on human flesh and nearly kill students. Pushing him further down the tree of life. And not only that, but he has to come face to face with the ghost of one of his greatest failures, that should have been his greatest success.

Roll it back to 2001. Just before the whole X-Treme X-Men thing, Hank manages to piece together a Legacy Virus cure, using fragments of his own research and Moira MacTaggert's - but he immediately regards it as a failure, not because it doesn't work, but because it would require a mutant to metabolise it and kill themselves in order for it to be released into the atmosphere. Hank regards the cost of one life to be too high, and locks the cure away - but not securely enough that Colossus can't get at it and use it anyway.

Colossus dies because of Hank, and it kills him inside. When he matches the mutant cure sample to Piotr's DNA sample, it mortifies him. It shames him. It deadens him. No good deed ever goes unpunished. Even while Scott and Emma are faffing around with relationship problems, Hank is quietly wallowing because this is his fault. He killed Piotr.

Well, he didn't. But he might as well have, right? He put the 'gun' in his hand.

But then we get to Abigail Brand, and man is this dynamic just Hank as hell. She's a government fist in green haired body suited form that doesn't care about your feelings, he's a blue furred idealist who constantly blames himself for everything and can do nothing but feel. They connect. Not because they're both awful people . . . but because they see in each other something that they like. For Hank, it's something base - she finds him sexually attractive, not in spite of but because of his mutation, and honestly, at this point? Being fetishised sounds kind of nice to Hank. For her?

She wants someone to keep her honest. Someone who will question her decisions. Someone who does nothing but question her decisions, in fact, because she fucked up, and she needs someone to call her out on her bullshit. Hm. Almost sounds like there's a human being behind those green shades.

More on this later.

Because we've started to reach the point where I'm told Hank's descent into villainy has started, and quite frankly, I'm not seeing it. He got sadder? He got more lonely (yes, the cat story happened, it's tragic and embarrassing, move on)? But villainous? "I always saw him as vulnerable," said Grant Morrison. "The thing about Hank McCoy is that he was always presented as the loquacious, happy-go-lucky character and then he became a little darker when [he turned into] the furry Beast, but then he became happy again in Avengers. Basically, I'm looking at this bipolar kid. It's not so much that he's a villain; he just falls into bad situations and that makes him more human."

If people mean Here Comes Tomorrow, then I invite you to read that story again and remember that Hank is only really present in maybe eight panels of that story. The rest of the time it's Sublime piloting his body, and Hank has nothing to do with it. You might as well blame anyone ever possessed by Malice for what they did while under her influence.

But anyway.

The Decimation.

What a time for mutant kind. 198 mutants left, and falling. And everyone is looking to Hank McCoy for answers. He'll do almost anything to get them . . . right? In comes Endangered Species by Mike Carey, wherein Hank scours the corners of the Earth and gets his hands dirty trying to find a way to kickstart the mutant race again. He consorts with villains, he exhumed corpses, he nearly kills a drug dealer who wants fresh MGH from him and Bishop's bodies. He's on very thin ice, and in danger of cracking. He is, quite literally, facing his darkest impulses.

Enter Dark Beast.

Now, Dark Beast has been a thing since the mid-90s, and honestly, I kind of love the guy because he's so incredibly and over the top evil - but I also kind of hate him because his very existence seems to make people think that Hank always had evil inside of him, that he was just born that way. How very Graydon Creed, to believe that evil is something people are born to be rather than something that people do or become. The truth is that Dark Beast was born into a world completely different from Hank's, and while we don't know the exact divergence point for him, X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #10 provides us with some clues - namely, that he never knew his parents.

Hank's incredibly loving, incredibly guilty, incredibly proud parents.

The parents that Dark Beast, violent psychopath, mutant supremacist, literal killer of children and Age of Apocalypse's own Dr. Mengele . . . couldn't bring himself to kill, because they loved Hank McCoy so much, and on some level, Dark Beast recognised that. Felt afraid of it. Felt weakened by it. Felt infuriated by it. Had to kill a random passerby just to feel more like himself. Because they were just so damned good, and maybe if he'd had parents like that, maybe?

It's also worth noting that Dark Beast, both here in the 90s, and later in Endangered Species (2008), points out that Hank isn't him. "I told you when we started on this that we'd have to think the unthinkable, Henry. I knew you'd let me down. But I didn't think you'd reach your limits this quickly. [...] You're fighting for the future of your species. Did that slip your mind? It's the only fight that matters, Henry. It's the war in which nature enlists every last one of us. And you're a deserter."

Hmmm.

Where have I heard that before.

So, Hank gives up. He stops searching for a cure, because one doesn't exist - or if it does, it requires a moral sacrifice that he isn't capable of. He disappoints mutant kind, and it won't be the last time. He fails to find answers in 1906 San Francisco, he fails to keep the faith at Utopia, he fails to stop things from escalating at a demonstration and ends up captured by Osborn - and Dark Beast. What a pathetic sack of crap, right? How dare he fail. He should be more like Cyclops.

"We make the choice for ourselves. And we have to live with the consequences afterwards."

"I'll live with it."

"I said we. I need to live with it."

Hmm.

"Sometimes in war you have to do things that you hate. Things you can't even bear to think about. This is one of those times. [...] I'm not making that choice for any of you. If you have any doubts about what we're about to do, stand out of the line. No one will blame you or question you. Ever."

Hmmmmm.

"All's well that ends well, Scott?"

"Looks that way from here. Why? Something on your mind?"

"Something, yes. The fact that you decided to use the Legacy Virus before you asked me if I had a working antidote."

"Your conscience is one of the things I value about you, Hank. Really. Never stop challenging me on that."

HMMMMMMMM.

#CyclopsWasRight?

But whatever, let's keep moving on. Utopia's X-Force happens. It's bloody. It's messy. It's grim. Hank doesn't approve. Scott tries to keep him on side, but it's not easy. Eventually, it reaches a boiling point. Hank decides he can't stay anymore, because he's not effective in his current capacity. Scott doesn't need him anymore, he needs more guns and soldiers and mutants, and Hank can't make those anymore. He deserts. What a piece of shit, caring about morals at a time like this. What a traitor. Oh, it's also worth noting that before he died, Kurt found out about X-Force, and was on the verge of quitting the X-Men, just like Hank. Just a sidenote, by the way.

Now, I believe in fairness, and I don't believe in whitewashing Hank's actions, especially when he wouldn't want me to, so it's only fair to bring up the Ghost Box laser strike and the Secret Avenger nuclear bomb that Hank constructs. Clear examples of the slow erosion of his moral fibre on his way to becoming a villain.

Or he feels massively guilty, sickened, and disgusted about what he had to do, while both times, the leader that he tries his best to believe in and follow tells him not to lose sleep over it. Except, Hank does. Because that is the kind of character Hank is.

Hank McCoy is a "superheroic overcompensating altruist [...] perfectly nice people who think the universe is full of perfectly nice people." Hank McCoy is Scott Summers' "biggest brain and [his] oldest friend. Moment comes you have to take action, I'll never question it." Hank McCoy is "the most hard working, brilliant and heroic [person] I know." Hank McCoy is "a name well known in the great game of worlds. Others yous have done this before [...] simply evacuate this world, and then destroy it completely," rather than risk the destruction of two. Hank McCoy is "no killer [...] and no force, however great, could make you kill."

Hank is the man who reaches out to villains, and tries to help them. He did it with Wonder Man. He did it with Emma Frost. He did it with Infectia. Hank is the bleeding, dying heart of the X-Men. He believes in second chances. He believes in art, and literature, and music.

He doesn't believe in the law of the jungle.

I'd also like to point out, that even though he was called a traitor, and met with a frosty reception by the other X-Men when he asked for their help, he still came when they called for medical aid. He still held out hope that he and Scott would reconcile. He was one of the few people to look at the Phoenix Five and remember who they were before they got power, and believe that they could possibly control it. Even after Scott kills the Professor, even though Hank is furious with Scott, even though Scott literally says, "I've done abominable things. I don't ask for forgiveness. I don't deserve it. [...] But I'd do it all again"?

I guess you could read this a few different ways. Is Hank just pushing Scott out forcefully? Is he gentle? Is he squeezing his shoulder in a moment of what could almost be comfort? I don't know. I kinda think it's the latter. I think the best of Hank where I can.

"Thank god, Hank. You're alive. I was lost. I thought I killed y - "

Hank is still a man that Scott Summers wants to be alive, because Hank is good. Yeah, he can be FUCKING ANNOYING, and he can be hypocritical, and he can be an asshole, and he can be flawed, and he can be a nuisance, and he can be insufferable, but he is good.

Enter Brian Michael Bendis.

This is the point where Hank's character wrecks and arguably never recovers, to be honest. It's not just the small details. It's not just stupid things, like 17 year old Hank apparently being a medical doctor, or modern day super genius ultra mechanic Hank being incapable of putting a motorcycle back together for the sake of a joke. It's not even the egregious things, like Uncanny X-Men #600 and All-New X-Men #25 being a double header of literally everyone in the universe kicking Beast in the shins because Bendis wanted to write teenage Jean Grey as just the worst. It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of the character.

"Somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that your brilliance allows you the right to do whatever you want whenever you want to do it."

I'm sorry, fucking what?

If you're this far deep in this thesis - and it is a thesis, and I don't apologize for that - do you think this is the same character? This man who is obsessed with consequences, obsessed with guilt, obsessed with being perfect, obsessed with controlling himself, obsessed with morality . . . is convinced that he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it? He learned this lesson 40 years ago! Beast is not like this!

Now, Bendis' Beast might be like this. But I have to ask you, reader, who presumably frequents comic book boards, or Reddit, or Tumblr tags, or Twitter . . . is Bendis the guy you go to for thoughtful, evocative, well considered characterisation? Is he on the level of Mark Waid, or Al Ewing, or Jonathan Hickman, or Grant Morrison, or Louise Simonson, or Marjorie Liu, or Rainbow Rowell, or Kelly Sue DeConnick? Is he known for respecting what came before and creating a throughline of character and continuity?

No, he fuckin' aint.

He's known for Bendis-speak. He's known for ignoring continuity. He's known for big shake-ups of established status quos that often leave characters in the doghouse for decades. Yeah, he can write some good comics, but I just - why is this man's characterisation of Beast considered the definitive one? Is the voice that shouts the loudest really the most articulate? Go ask a fan of the Scarlet Witch, or X-23, or Jon Kent, or GOTG fans about his entire run on that comic.

Beast wrecks here, and he never recovers. He loses his entire character development track about his mutation because it got changed. He loses his entire dynamic with Abigail. Everything good about 00s Beast is just gone, and there's nothing left to replace it but failure. Not really. Every now and then, someone tried to steer him back on the right path, get back to a more thoughtful, less dipshit Hank McCoy. A+X #12 by Christos Gage, and Uncanny Avengers by Jim Zub, both try the same trick, 4 years apart, having Hank reunite with his best friend Simon Williams and drink, and reflect on what's happened.

Each time, there's another crossover event that Hank has to answer for, because now Beast is the designated load. It happened in All-New X-Men, it happened in Black Vortex, it happened in IvX. It was just easy. He was never a guy with a massive fanbase, and all the casual fans filtered away as domino after domino falls. Every time, HOW DID I BECOME THIS?

Iunno. No-one seems to give enough of a fuck to answer the question. The real answer is that the writers need plot to happen, and, well.

Who cares if Beast is ruined? Well, I think Matthew Rosenberg cared a fair bit. I think Max Bemis cared quite a lot. I care, probably too much.

There are tons of little fun appearances here and there, mostly scattered across other books, that are more reminiscent of the Hank that used to be. Mariko Tamaki, in her last X-23 run, used him really nicely, having him take pictures of Laura and Gabby bonding, helping Laura run down immoral scientists (HA!), being a big man with a bigger bow tie. Being "the nerd I trust, so I like having him around," says Laura.

Hmm.

Well.

I have two points left to make. One? It is a stone cold, actual fact that we go from warm, intelligent, thoughtful, loved Beast, to Percy's narcissistic, cold, and genocidal war criminal in the space of maybe ten issues. The change was not gradual, it was abrupt. Read almost any comic prior to Krakoa featuring Beast in it, and he does not sound or act the same. Read the dialogue for X-Force #1 through 9, and tell me you can really tell that that's Beast.

Tell me that's the Hank McCoy that loves his human parents.

There's a reason everyone was speculating for the longest time that it was Dark Beast, or something else was afoot, because he sounds wrong. There's no jokes, no warmth, no charm, no energy. He's a slow, lifeless cadaver of a character, plodding along his course to become a Bond villain.

Two? There was a story to be told here. Hank has definitely toed the line a good few times before. Crossed it less times, but he did. Each time, it cost him. Each time, it hurt him. Each time, it left a scar upon his soul. Each time, maybe it got a little easier, but I don't genuinely think that's the case. I think that Hank McCoy is the kind of guy for whom it never gets easier to hurt people. The building blocks were there for a story where that man has to keep doing it, again and again, cutting away pieces of himself, because it's what Krakoa needs.

But that story would require sympathy, and I don't think that Ben Percy, "People who think that Beast is loveable have only read a small selection of comics," really has any sympathy for Beast. I think he finds him annoying. I think he finds him contemptible, and up himself. I think that Ben Percy believes that Beast is cold-hearted, cruel, endlessly self-justifying, unfunny, shortsighted, and overall, a bastard. I don't believe that was ever the case.

It makes me sad that the fandom believes that was ever the case.

His character was assassinated. It was assassinated back in 2013, and it's been being assassinated every month since 2019. The version of Beast that existed from 1981 to 2012 will be gone, dead - literally killed - when the classic version of him comes back at the end of X-Force. I liked the 1981-2012 version a lot. The version from 2012 to 2018, I liked a lot less. The version from 2019 onwards?

Don't go off vibes. Read the panels. Tell me what you think. Is that the same character?

Now we come to the end of my thesis. I feel like I've covered most of the main points here, but TL;DR?

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a continuation of Hank's character, because his version of the character is an idiot. He is cruel, unfunny, lacking in any humanity, inherently evil, moustache twirling, disrespectful. He is without nuance. He is Mister Sinister in a blue fur coat without any of the camp.

The fact that people will go on Twitter or Reddit and say that they prefer this Beast over the old one makes me want to fucking spit because fuck you. Fuck you that you think that this travesty, this half-formed mish mash of Bond villain tropes and fat shaming stereotypes, is in any way better than what we had. Grow up. Read better comics. I hope to god you mature, because fuck, man.

Ben Percy's Beast doesn't work as a villain, either, because he's simultaneously incompetent, and yet constantly given karma houdinis that have no basis in his ability, only in the plot. Any semblance of grounding in the idea of 'necessary evils' is so fucking amateurish and put to paper with no real belief in it. Percy just thinks Beast is an asshole, it's as simple as that.

And you know what makes me feel vindicated? You know what makes me laugh?

Marvel really don't give a fuck about this version of Beast. They really just do not care and I get the distinct impression people can't wait for it to roll back. Don't believe me?

How come Nightcrawler is apparently gossiping with Hank in issues of She-Hulk that take place in the Krakoan era?

How come Hank is still appearing in Avengers and X-Men variant covers as his traditional, heroic self?

How come Marvel Age #1000, a self-styled "CELEBRATION OF THE MARVEL AGE OF COMICS," had an X-Men story that was about the O5 - and yet, really, it was about Jean and Scott falling in love, with Hank on the sidelines, gently nudging Jean in the right direction?

How come no-one appears to give a fuck that Beast, one of the pillars of the superhero community, killed a small country?

In-universe, there is no explanation. This is 'Blade begging Captain America and the Avengers to help kill all the vampires' level of disconnect. It makes everyone involved look like a goddamn psychopath.

Out of universe, it's because no-one is interested in this story. If writers other than Ben Percy wanted a villainous Hank McCoy, they would just use Dark Beast, because he's substantially more entertaining and charismatic and enjoyable as a villain than Percy's edgelord Beast.

Ben Percy is 44 years old, allegedly. I wouldn't know that, judging by the level of maturity with which he handles his villains. If he intended to write a mutant Henry Kissinger, then he failed, because Kissinger was pure evil, but he also, you know, made sense.

Percy's Beast is trash.

I write him on this blog with substantially more care and thought put into his character than Ben Percy ever could. Because even though I'm not the one getting paid to do so, I'm the one putting in the work to make it make emotional sense. There's a story there. There's a compelling character there. If only Ben would have put the fucking work in.

Thank you for your question. :)

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Imagine RoR darling that unconsciouly have the powers revive dead people that only activates when she starts to have overwhealming emotions of any kind (like grief/happiness/excitement etc)

She saw many people close to her fight eaxh other then dying one by one. At first she thoughens up and even bottled her emotions until she can take it any more and it burst from her then suddenly a flash of blinding light that came from her covers the arena then boom, all of the dead characters are revived

-You were such a sweet person, kind to all you met, even if they weren’t kind back, always willing to help others, and in general you were a ball of sunshine, it was hard for others to dislike you.

-You did your best to always make others happy, even if you didn’t feel happy yourself, fighting your own internal demons

-It was had to bring yourself back out of the darkness of depression, you’ve done it a few times and you know how hard the struggle is to do so, so you endeavor to make others happy, so they don’t have to fight that fight.

-You always kept a bottle on your emotions, only letting positive and happy emotions out, unaware that your bottle was beginning to crack.

-When Ragnarok was announced, you were horrified, appalled to learn of the decision of the gods to just get rid of humanity, rather than managing them, like they should have done in the first place, and it made your heart ache, thinking of all who would suffer due to it.

-You were unaware of your abilities, which only appeared when you had an explosion of emotion, usually when you had a breakdown, but your ability was one that made so many happy, despite your suffering leading up to it and afterwards, as you always felt tired and weak afterwards.

-Jack, a good friend of yours, and Buddha, could both see your pain, your inner turmoil, Jack being able to see your fluctuating emotions, despite the bright smile on your face. He felt for you, wanting to make others happy so they didn’t suffer in a similar way.

-Buddha did his best to help you, doing things that would make you happy, not telling you that he knew out right, as he knew that you would worry about bothering him.

-When Brunnhilde started looking for warriors to fight for humanity, you were scared, seeing those you cared about, both humans and gods, being selected, as you knew these fights were going to be fights to the death and you didn’t want to lose any of them.

-You were in the front row, sitting right on the edge between the two opposing sides, as you supported both sides and you didn’t want either one of the opponents to die.

-Watching Lu Bu, Adam, Poseidon, Hercules, and Raiden all die broke your heart, you tried to keep control of your tears and Jack tried his best to keep you calm, sensing a meltdown of emotion coming.

-As you watched Buddha and Zerofuku fight, your tears began to fall, your bottle of emotions cracking even more, even more so when Zerofuku was devoured by Hajun.

-You could see Zerofuku beaming down at Buddha, along with the Seven Lucky Gods before you clenched your eyes shut and what many could only describe as a flashbang, a huge explosion of light enveloped the arena.

-You were slumped in Jack’s arms and someone shouted, “Look!” in awe, everyone could only stare as everyone who had passed, including Cheng Gong, Red Hare, and Lu Bu’s army, and all of the Valkyries took form and all took in breaths that sounded like gasps as they were returned to life.

-Buddha whirled to see you being carried by Jack to the infirmary as the tournament was stopped, happy reunions happening all over- Zeus running to Poseidon and Hercules, Goll and Brunnhilde running to their sisters, happy tears all around.

-Many became curious about your ability, as it was so powerful and so sudden, but they were even more surprised when Buddha told them, after everyone met outside the infirmary, that you didn’t even know you could do that- it was something you did unconsciously when your emotions went wild- and seeing Zerofuku die was the boiling point.

-When you woke up, two days later, you felt super weak, but you couldn’t remember what happened, looking around the infirmary in confusion.

-You lifted a hand to your head, trying to will a headache away before you heard, “Y/N!” you were stunned when Adam hugged you, wrapping his arms around you carefully, holding you close. You blinked in confusion, “What- wait- what-what happened?!”

-All those who had died entered the infirmary, once you were sitting up, and you were stunned, tears appearing in your eyes, overflowing with happiness as you cupped Zerofuku’s cheeks, “How did this happen?”

-Shiva grinned warmly, patting Raiden on the back, “You did this- you flash-banged the whole arena and brought everyone back to life- knocking yourself out in the process.”

-Jack took a seat next to you, giving you a cup of tea to help with your headache, “As well as a fever.” Your eyes were quickly swirling around, confused as you didn’t believe them, “I did this…? No- how?! I don’t have any abilities like this!”

-Odin then approached, giving you a small nod, “You do- I was able to tell that you have an unknown ability to bring those who have died back from the dead when you have a burst of emotion- from what I gather, seeing those die before Zerofuku, with him being the final factor, made you feel so much anguish that your powers went berserk, but in a good way.”

-You found it a little hard to believe despite the proof standing right in front of you, but your friends all rallied around you, mainly because others wanted you to use your abilities to bring their own loved ones back to life, so you had to be protected, and they all started to dote on you, making you happy, helping with your depression so you were able to smile without forcing it for the first time in a long time.

-You were so lucky to have such wonderful people in your life who would do anything to keep you happy because you always worked so hard to do the same.

[plutonium-sky]

Okay so I named this sideblog "plutos-THOUGHTS-and-sketches" so it's time to take up my promise on that

This is gonna be my ancestors, elders, and a little bit of skid, spirits (I'll elaborate on them in another post) and some miscellaneous hcs that should line up together and i hope that it doesn't interfere with any lore. Buckle up this is gonna be a long one

So! Let's start off with ancestors. What are they?

I like to think that they used to be skids but then willingly gave away their light. They're just tired of existing for eternity, you know? So they dropped their eternality (they could still be killed but then would be reborn- like through eden! But there weren't any widespread methods of doing that before and they still got reborn :( ) and became a mortal species we now know as ancestors. They. Well. Reproduced. And forgot their roots. They forgot why they always feel like they're missing a major part of them (their light), and they didn't understand why light healed them and made them feel euphoric. (Note that only some light can properly heal them. Like. They're basically humans. Fire WILL burn. But, say, a manta's light will feel caressing.)

So what's up with Elders, then?

Basically! They're normal ancestors. Except, with a twist: they didn't give away ALL of their light. Only some of it, really. But it's a permanent move anyways. They continue to have limited lifespans, but they're much, much longer than normal ancestors. And some of their skid physiology (is that the right term?) kicks in, letting them grow and grow for as long as they aren't dead. (They can't be reborn, though.) (And does that mean that skids before used to be giant? Yes. Does that also mean that skids who don't eden run get to be taller? Also yes.) so they just get to be the cool guys, who remain to be above the rest, containing the knowledge and power and potential.

And now I'll elaborate a bit on some of the specifics about all of this. Healing is basically relighting another skid, and there is a whole, high paying, high status job that's basically having the right type of light that can heal others instead of burning them. (Without it, all krill attacks would have been lethal. Even then, it's expensive as hell.)

Ancestors have the lifespan of a normal human and elders are basically five times that. Magic (spells) exist and they can only be cast by the most talented, the most full of light ancestors. This means that basically all elders can do spells if they put their mind to it.

Anyways about the thing where i said they always feel like they're missing a part of themselves. So they die, wake up (I'll elaborate on that more in another post that will include my spirit hcs) and go like "wow i feel great" because eden basically inserted some light into them

They all have normal names, but the Elders that we know don't share theirs anymore with normal ancestors because of an.... Event. (This is bordering on my au stuff so we'll skip over that. Let your imagination go wild) Which means that if a skid (i hc that all skids know elder names (search sky cotl elder names if you don't know them, they have names)) suddenly calls one by their name ancestors would be confused and Elders would be flashbanged and wary

Masks are a traditional thing! Some people replace them with face markings instead and some don't wear anything at all (but those are few), which means that some cultures that are disconnected from the norm don't wear masks (like the nine colored deer spirits. Take a look. Feudal lord is the only one with an actual mask and even then you can't convince me that it isn't just giant eyebrows)

Eden exploded (shattering) from darkness corruption overload. How that happened is up to you but I hc that Resh is a skid and was tired of seeing everyone dying so he researched and came up with that solution to make everyone immortal

Anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk there Will be a part two

[lemwinters]

Resident Evil x My Hero Academia

Leon S. Kennedy & Albert Wesker Edition.

Leon S. Kennedy

I imagine him having a light quirk, able to manipulate it, create "flashbangs" and whips out of lights. And more things.

He'd be the sweetheart of his class, one that everyone loves.

I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in class 1A.

But would it be at the same time as Midoriya and the others, or would he be around Aizawa's age or in between? (Changes depending which RE we'd use for him.)

Anyways, he'd be popular with the people and heroes for his power, his golden heart and also of course, his appearance.

And yes, he would be a hero/someone that came from the States and ended up living in Japan, where the *ahem* greatest *ahem* heroes are.

He would be the hero that mainly works on fighting against that underground group of terrorists named Umbrella.

-

If he ever were to be quirkless instead, Id see him as that hard working officer that every Pro Heroes love and encourage. He'd be the "quirkless" person that people can't shit on since he does such a good job.

He'd love when he can work with heroes since he'd "secretly" admire them.

Wouldn't be surprised if he had heroes merchs and ended up having a couples of Deku, Shoto, and Dynamight's. And more new heroes's.

He wouldnt be for the "you have a quirk, you're better" kind of hierarchy there is and would try his best to change people's mind about quirkless and lower gifted quirk people.

Albert Wesker

This man, the secret head of the terrorist group Umbrella, a cruel and genius man.

He is already trouble on his own, so when he learns of All for One, at first he isnt sure of he should see him as a rival, another pion or an ally. He does seem strong, smart and reliable in multiple ways that Wesker like.

So when he first contact him and they end up joining hands, the chaos started. Who do you think helped the Doctor and All-for-One create those monsters? Yes, it was Him.

He never was in the spotlight, just like Shigaraki(AfO). But unlike that man, he never showed himself to the world, to the heroes and worked through other people, pions.

He injected himself with a virus mixed with a quirk and thats how he got his ability now.

Uses virus and mutated quirks as his weapons instead of just viruses.

He also is the one who actually started those syringes who increases people's quirks and decreases their judgments turning them into some more wild, strong people.

It would be a lie to say he doesn't love the chaos he creates or sees, it is something he quite enjoy it, it's entertaining.

Even when he partnered up with All-for-One, he knew that this was only temporary. He always has prefered working alone, especially if the other is also a very smart man, just like him.

#We really need to think more about this.

[hyrules-warrior]

Imagine what Ellie and Joel’s first days, weeks even months would be like in Jackson. They would struggle so much to adjust if they even could fully after what they went through.

The only people Ellie has encountered since the last time she was in Jackson all tried to kill her and Joel. Between everything with David and his people and the fireflies that threw the flashbang at them, people are dangerous and Jackson has SO many people. She doesn’t go anywhere without Joel and panics if someone gets too close or touches her. She sticks close to Joel’s right side so she can keep an eye out since he can’t hear things approaching as well from that side. If there is something she thinks he hasn’t noticed she will lightly touch his side to direct his focus over there. If she wants to talk to him a light tug on his arm or hand has him tilting his head down so he doesn’t miss what she says. 

The only people Joel has encountered since the last time he was in Jackson have all tried to kill Ellie. Between the whole nightmare that was Silver Lake and then Marlene and her fireflies people pose a threat to her safety. Everyone is suspicious and he is even a bit ashamed at his caution around his own brother. He used to be a firefly after all and his wife Maria gives him dagger eyes every time she sees him. He is respectful but tight lipped with everyone, not open to chit chat and friendly conversation. The amount of times he has almost punched a person he thought was getting too close or too friendly would probably get him booted from Jackson if Maria knew.

They both panic if the other is out of their sight. Any time they have been separated from each other it has only lead to one of them getting hurt or almost killed. They can’t keep each other safe if they aren’t together. They go everywhere together, tucked close and their heads always on the swivel looking for danger. 

Ellie flat out refuses to go to school and Joel doesn’t make her. All she had to say was that David had been a teacher and he was 100% in agreement about her not having to go. Ellie finds the kids in Jackson to be annoying at best and totally foreign at worst anyway. She just can’t relate to them. They complain about what meal hall is serving (how could you ever complain about food when it can be so scarce?, when it can be days between meals?). They boast about the day they will get to kill infected and be on patrol, shoot a gun, hunt an animal.... all things she has done many times before and she has done even worse. She has a kill count of both infected and people and it’s not something to boast about.

They set up a defensible sleeping spot in the living room of their house. They push the furniture around to keep them hidden out of sight, drag the mattresses from their beds down there and all the blankets and pillows and make a safe nest to sleep. Every night when it’s time for bed Joel walks the outside perimeter of the house checking for anything suspicious and making sure it’s secure from the outside. Inside, Ellie double checks the window locks and back door lock, closes the curtains and pushes a kitchen chair under the back door handle. It takes both of them to push the heavy bookshelf across the front door when Joel returns from his check. It’s weeks before they stop trading watch shifts during the night. 

They have their backpacks packed and ready to go always. They often walk around Jackson wearing them, reluctant to be without gear should they need to escape. In the house they stay right by the door with their jackets. Shoes always stay on their feet even inside.

They have a hard time adjusting to, well, the concept of time. For them, days start at sunrise and end at sunset regardless of time of year. The main meal of the day is when they stop to camp for the night. Other then that it’s quick nibbles throughout the day on the trail. So needing to wake up at certain times and be at the meal hall at certain times is a struggle at first. 3 meals a day is great but it’s such a foreign concept to them at this point. 

They are also used to sharing food. After losing the camp stove and most of their camp supplies when they lost the truck, they pretty much just share food right from the can, passing it back and forth as they take bites. Or tearing off bites of meat from the same cooked rabbit, breaking pieces of jerky or other hardtack in half and sharing. It becomes second nature to eat this way, especially after Silver Lake. Ellie is suspicious of any food she hasn’t hunted herself or seen Joel eat first. So they take their shares of food from meal hall and dump it onto a single plate and eat from it, Ellie usually passing all the red meat to Joel’s side of the plate and he gives her the entire double serving of anything she starts eating (much to Ellie’s frustration sometimes, he really needs to stop always giving the bigger share of food to her). 

The only time they weirdly seem to relax in the slightest is when they go outside the walls together. It’s dangerous outside of course, but it is a danger they understand and all of their “habits” as Maria calls them (Joel calls it survival instincts) make sense out there. Ellie comes with Joel on patrols despite all the arguing about her being too young. She won’t be separated from him, especially if he is leaving the “safety” of Jackson (he won’t be safe out there if she isn’t with him!).

Separation anxiety, codependency.... these words get thrown around a lot in regards to them by people in Jackson (Maria especially likes to toss those out like it’s a bad thing Joel himself made happen). Joel knows it’s probably not the healthiest that they are like this but it works, it has kept them safe and alive so he isn’t keen to try and do different.

[missing-sock-misto]

So Tuggoffelees, 3, 7, 8, 18 and 20, if you like?

Thank you so much!!

3-Most common argument?

Messes and keeping where they live tidy. Misto likes everything to be neat, and thinks everything has its place. Tugger does not care, and finds putting things away a bother. He does try, he’s gotten better, but it does not come naturally to him. So Misto does most of the tidying/cleaning, and sometimes gets frustrated when Tugger comes in and leaves a tornado in his wake.

In more-human aus, they basically work to develop a system, finding chores Tugger can do that he likes/tolerates, and Tugger does know to at least put away his clothes and keep his hair/makeup products in the designated drawer.

7-What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?

Well to start, Neither of them had expected to fall in love. Misto was still dead set on insisting that he didn’t even like Tugger, while Tugger had his reputation and free-wheeling lifestyle. (I head canon that they would meet up in secret for hook ups or hang outs for a while before they properly fell in love. And then it was months of pining before they confessed their feelings). So they had a secret relationship before going public.

So the biggest thing was; they stopped hiding that they liked each other in public. They still tease each other, Misto pretending to be annoyed by Tugger’s antics (Terrible bore). But they press against each other when they see each other, lean against each other, keep their tails entwined etc.

8-Nicknames? & if so, how did they originate?

Lmaoo yess

Misto-> Tugger: Terrible bore, Rockstar, handsome, sweetheart, dear, brat, menace.

Tugger-> Misto: [Unfurl scroll that hits the floor] Including but not limited to:

Sparkles, Starlight, Firecracker, Stardust, Twinkle toes, Flashbang, my Personal Laser Pointer, Disco ball, Little Demon, Void, Voidlet, Raincloud, Darling, Dear, Love

The general logic:

Sparkles: most common, default

Starlight: A more private nickname, when he’s feeling more awestruck/romantic. Most people are unaware of it.

Firecracker: When Misto is being particularly sassy

Raincloud: When Misto is sad and withdrawn.

I’m working on a story of Tugger and Misto’s first hookup, where Misto’s magic is secret. And Tugger calls Misto “Bowtie” when he is supposed to be unaware of Misto’s magic, but switches to Sparkles when he finds out.

18-Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)

Honestly, this doesn’t feel like something either of them would do to me? This is more a Demestrap thing to me. I’d say for special occasions, Tugger, but it’s not really an everyday thing.

20-What do their family/friends think of their relationship?

Initially;

Victoria- thrilled and shocked. “HIM?! But you said you hated him?!?”

Munk: Certain that this is just a fling and won’t last.

Bombalurina: has been Tugger’s confidant for the last few months, and has been subject to his pining. She knows they’re genuine and has the most confidence in this working out if Tugger can get his shit together.

Now: Everyone has seen how they feel about each other and knows it’s a matter of time before they get married. They’re supportive and accepting.

Thank you so much for the ask! 😁

[rizaposting]

bff help 😭😭😭😭 i look up to you so much (and a lot of other royai/riza fan artists, but you seem the most friendly) and i wanna start posting my own riza art, but im scared ill be booed off the app 😭 any advice for first time fma artists? 🥺 i mostly plan on just making riza fanarts, a little riza x oc, stuff like that. thank you 💕

WAAAHH anon you're so sweet!! First and foremost GRABS YOU you should absolutely post your Riza art! Everyone should post Riza art forever because I'm starving and slurp it up. But you should ALSO post it because it's fun to create and share with people! No one is going to boo you off of the platform, and frankly if anyone tries to they probably need to take a long walk in nature and say hi to some people they pass on the street.

As far as advice, the biggest thing is to try to avoid the "# notes = success/good quality" thinking. It's totally natural to want feedback, and Internet Validation Numbers is encouraging! But if you post something and it doesn't immediately get attention, don't beat yourself up about the quality of your work. Some of my favorite pieces (drawings and writing) are "flops", but I try not to let that discourage me or sour how I feel about them. Sometimes it's just bad luck with timing; or good luck, oppositely

Okay now for more technical advice:

Schedule your posts on tumblr. I usually schedule my art to post at 7:30pm EST kind of arbitrarily, it feels like a good compromise of time zones. Please do know that you might flashbang yourself with your art every time (I do lmfao)

Reblog your work again the next day; mix up your timing and don't be afraid to do a few self-reblogs.

Tag your posts thoughtfully but not excessively, afaik only the first 5 tags are will be where it shows up (EDIT: apparently I'm thinking of 2014 tumblr and it's now the first 30 tags! But I would also posit you absolutely will never fucking need 30 tags. Over tagging will not help, so only tag what's relevant). Series name and acronyms, character name(s), and ship name are good. Also include a tag that you put on all your art so you and others can find it easily!

Comedy usually has more reach. People love silly memes and shitposts and frankly who can blame them! That's not to say serious posts don't also get attention, but just something I noticed

HAVE FUN!!!! this sounds so patronizing, but honestly it's best to do things that appeal to you and have fun with likeminded people. Your passion and enjoyment with telegraph through your work and it will make people smile!!!

I also just want to say that a lot of other Rizalikers are super friendly!!! It can be intimidating to talk to people, but we're all just freaks on the internet rotating a fictional character in our heads. The best way to get to know people is just to reach out and comment on their art/writing/silly posts. It doesn't need to be anything crazy! You can also join fandom discord servers to talk to them on a more casual (and frankly easier) platform, with less pressure because it's less 1-on-1. If you want to DM them (discord or tumblr) def go for it, but I would recommend against just saying "hi!" and then not following it up with anything else, because then I just go "hi!" and then I don't know how to push the conversation forward lol

I would love to see your creations and hear your Rizathoughts, Anon! I believe in you! I hope you decide to come play with us in this rizaspace. Feel free to message me off anon or send me a DM if you want to chat :]

[mannequinreligi0n]

Metamorphosis

A bite from a lycan provides a fate worse than death for Chris.

WC: 588

WARNINGS: none really, just really grim lol

NOTES: head full of lycan!chris thoughts and hcs, so this might develop into a multi-part thing, but who knowsss. also tumblr ruined the format, so check this out on AO3, if you’d rather read there.

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Crawling. Itching.

Skin too tight.

Too tight.

Too tight.

Stretching, bending, breaking.

Burning - flames everywhere.

Wildfire runs through veins, scorching every fiber and nerve.

Chris writhed in pain, diving head-first into a tree trunk, grasping at the bark for support. The bite to his shoulder throbbed relentlessly, surging pain and venom throughout his cells. A flashbang of memories sparked through Chris’ brain: soldiers falling, gunfire, yellowed teeth and mirages of hair —

No.

Not teeth. Not hair.

The teeth were fangs, the hair was fur.

Pain. So much pain.

Pain in the eyes of dying commandos, in the wails of fleeing villagers, and in the ache of Chris’ body.

It’s too much.

“Get out! Get out! Get OUT GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT!!!”

Blood starts to weep down his brow as he slams his head again and again and again into the tree, trying so hard to shut off the reruns of violence from yesterday. Everyone was dead, everything was for nothing. It’s all his fault. It’s ALWAYS his fault. Why did he take this job? Why did he care so, so much for other people? Why was this —

His train of thought breaks from another eruption of pain. Chris drops to his knees and claws at his clothes.

It’s too hot, they’re too tight.

The clothing reverts to its natural state of mere threads as he tears them from his body, happily accepting the bite of the cold on fevered skin. He flops forward into the snow, staining the innocent white with the shameful red oozing from his shoulder. Chris, weak from blood-loss and guilt, allows his eyes to shutter. He’s dying and he knows it. ‘Finally….no…more…’, he thinks, letting the wave of black take over.

————————-

C R A C K.

With a bellowed scream, Chris’s eyes shoot open and he thrashes his limbs, spine contorting every which way. A hand comes up to wipe blood from his vision, a shriek of fear escaping him soon after.

‘My hands…..what?……how-“

Claws replaced nails on fingers far too long to be human; tufts of brown fur trailed from his arms up to the last knuckle on any given digit. He lifted his other hand up for examination, his stomach churning when he saw the transformation of his other hand happen in real time. Fur sprouted from unseen follicles as bones altered in shape, mangling the human anatomy into one of a beast.

A fate more brutal than death, Chris flailed in the snow, feeling every inch of his body betray him. He was turning into something he spent many long nights fighting. He can’t recall the amount of times he prayed to a god he didn’t even believe in before those fights, asking - no, begging to be spared just one more time.

But sometimes, your all isn’t enough.

Sometimes, your prayers are just words in the wind.

And Chris was scared.

He was so fucking scared.

Tears poured from him - it had been years since he let himself cry so fully. He didn’t care. His body wasn’t his. It was wrong. It was being replaced by a stranger, and no amount of shouting, crying, or praying would save him. He was alone with his tears and despair.

And just as suddenly as Chris’ body wasn’t his, his mind wasn’t either. It was gifted to the beast to be molded to its liking.

The tears stopped.

Pain gone.

Mind blank.

Tabula rasa.

All he was left with was this ancient hunger that was gnawing at the walls of his stomach.

Complete metamorphosis.