#Bonesaw Worm

[sillydog33]

Stopped reading worm for like a month bc of school but im backkk! god told me to draw patrick bateman bonesaw so i did 😇

[estavionpira]

Thinking about how Bonesaw is the only member of the Slaughterhouse Nine who wears a costume that isn't either created with a power or just regular clothes, and how Riley is the only member of the S9 (minus Harbinger) to actually develop as a person beyond the Bonesaw persona. Jack, Burnscar, and Cherish all just wear regular clothes, costumeless, and they've all become their personas. Jacob is Jack Slash, there is no separation. And this continues with Shatterbird's glass dress, Mannequin's doll body, Crawler's adaptations, and Siberian's stripes, which are all either costumes created with their powers, or are powers that produce a costume-like effect. Costumes take a role in Worm as a separation between a person and their cape persona, and the Slaughterhouse Nine either forgoing costumes or having them either incidentally (Crawler, Siberian) or for practicality (Shatterbird, Mannequin) shows how there isn't a person beyond the persona they portray. And yet, Bonesaw bucks this trend. She wears a dress like Alice in Wonderland, which is clearly a projection of the Bonesaw persona, and yet the costume is unnecessary for her power to work. It's something that she puts on to distance herself from Riley, and it works, until she is separated from the Slaughterhouse for two years and can't show herself to the world for that time. She has to exist without anyone to play Bonesaw to, and during that time, she isn't wearing the Alice dress. The costume is off, and Riley is allowed to exist again.

[phthalosblues]

I realize posting the fic as a reblog was maybe not the best way for it to be seen. So! Here it is on its own post!

it’s fairly short so… riley/bonesaw shortfic!

Riley sat on a small chair in an empty apartment on Earth Gimel. It was set to be given to some family, one that was still out there in the hoard of people in tents, the grief tainting the air. 

It had been a few weeks since she had left Bonesaw behind. She still wasn't trusted by the others. It didn't bother her very much. 

What did bother Riley, though, was herself. She had expected some big psychological changes after she left her old life. Some great feeling of happiness that she had never felt before, like in the movies, when the music swelled, tears were cried, and the villain was good again. It wasn't that black and white. 

She felt disappointed. Not that she had left it behind, though it was really the only family she had ever known. That she had been in the Slaughterhouse Nine to begin with. That she let all of this happen. Her modifications. Her stupid “art”. Her blind loyalty to Jack as he ripped Riley's past to shreds, as he changed her. Into someone. Something else. Bonesaw. 

It plagued her. How had she kept it up? Her cheery facade. Her love for her gruesome art. How had she seen it as fine? As normal? How had she enjoyed it? All the things she did. Hell. Half of the capes on Gimel despised her. For what she did to them, their families, their friends. Even their cities, some of them. 

Riley stood up and grabbed the opaque white plastic bag from the wooden table next to her, pushing it as she stood. She pushed the chair back into place, to make it seem as if she had never been there. The people who were going to live here didn't need her tainting their space. 

She stepped into the apartment’s bathroom and pulled the contents from the bag, placing each one on the sink’s countertop. As she pulled each one out of the bag, she murmured their names, a habit. 

“Comb, brush, dye, towel, shampoo, conditioner, gloves, bowl.” She placed each one in a specific place on the counter, in an order only she understood. She had been told to stock up the empty apartments, put toiletries and essentials in them for the people who didn’t bring any supplies from Bet. 

After placing all of her items on the counter, she put toilet paper under the sink, extra hair products in the shower, and dental hygiene supplies in the cupboard behind the mirror. As she shut the mirror, she looked at herself. So much of Bonesaw was still left. Her eyes were still two-toned from the time she lost one in Brockton Bay. She hadn’t thought about changing them after. Maybe she would start wearing contacts, or replace the eye entirely. It wasn’t beyond her power. 

Riley’s hair was still blonde. She no longer wore it in ringlets, but it still had a faint wave from all of the years she had. Her dark brown roots were growing out. Why had she never done hair follicle implants? Was it some part of her that wanted to keep the brown? Or was it the want of the routine, dying her hair every Saturday, Jack helping her cover her roots? Riley had told herself that she wanted to dye it, but it was Jack who had said, “Wouldn’t blonde look so good on you? It would really tie your ‘doll’ look together, wouldn’t it?” 

Riley had excitedly complied, responding with an enthusiastic, “What a wonderful idea!” Before taking some dye from a dilapidated convenience store a week later. The first time she had dyed it, she exclaimed, “I look like Goldilocks!” with a wide grin. Jack had smiled, languid and easy in the mirror, before patting her small head and walking away. “He’s Papa Bear, I'm Goldilocks,” She had thought. 

Riley shook away the memory and frowned, unpackaging the hair dye and its components. She had done it a million times, at least, it felt like she had done it a million times. She put the dye into the bowl and mixed it with the small brush that came in the package. 

She combed her hair and separated a small chunk of it. Riley painted the dye into her hair, starting at the roots and pulling the brush down. The darker colour contrasted her blonde hair. After she had coloured the entire chunk of hair, she folded it in the tin foil and separated a new chunk. 

She repeated this process for an hour and a half exactly, and at the end, her head was covered with little tinfoil coffins full of hair. She sat, the dye making her scalp tingle.

 If she had done this right, this would be the last time Riley would dye her hair. Her roots would grow out and the dyed segments would be eventually removed. It was like grafting branches to a tree, to some extent. 

After sitting for eight minutes, she took out each one of the tinfoil squares and placed them into the small trash can next to the counter. 

Riley turned the glass knob on the tub, making sure the temperature was turned to a lukewarm, so the dye would stay, but washing wouldn't be uncomfortable. She lowered her head into the running water, careful not to get her ratty t-shirt wet. The water soothed her scalp, rinsing away the excess dye, the water running brown as she rinsed. 

After rinsing a while, Riley reached for the shampoo and massaged it into her scalp, her short nails scratching the sensitive skin. The soapy water drained off of her hair in streams, still running with dye. 

She kept washing. She was washing it all away. That's what it felt like. Riley was only Riley. Not Bonesaw. She was turning back into what she never was. Giving herself a second chance. 

As soon as the water ran clear, she switched off the faucet and wrapped her hair in a towel to let it dry. She sat on the closed toilet. 

This was it. She was erasing her past. She was changing. A metamorphosis. Erasing the mark of the Nine upon her. Wasn't this what she wanted? Wouldn't it make people like her more? She didn't want to think about the questions she had. She was afraid that she wouldn't like the answers. But this was a step away from the monster she used to be.  —————————————————-

Probably not canon compliant, also not my greatest writing, so just. Be nice 👍

[vivaciousarcanist]

“Hey!”  Tattletale paused, pointing at me with a stern expression on her face.  “Don’t swear!”

[zarohk]

How and why does this predate Worm?!

[octelot]

Been thinking about bonesaw and riley grace davis

[worms-in-my-head]

Worm doodle dump

Save me spring break…

[estavionpira]

this is why she likes siberian because she is physically immune to this bullshit

This is the kind of shit I imagine Bonesaw had to put up with everytime she started operating on a new Nine member

[v-wind]

[abyranss]

Assorted Bonesaws

[sillydog33]

14.8... when i catch you wildbow

[estavionpira]

The Slaughterhouse Nine should have unionized. Bonesaw could have been so much more than Jack's healing dispenser if Shatterbird hadn't pre-emptively hired the Pinkertons to trap Crawler in concrete whenever he started agitating the workforce (Burnscar, Cherish, Bonesaw, Mannequin) against the bourgeoisie (Jack, Shatterbird, Siberian)

[phthalosblues]

should I post my mediocre bonesaw shortfic? (It’s quite old)

[butchseiya]

Surprise!

My take on interlude 11h from Worm.

[bonesawd]

"Siberian’s stick was Bonesaw, the possibility of losing the girl’s company in one way, shape, or form."

[joysuscreation]

I think Bonesaw would have Pippi Longstocking pigtails actually @cpericardium