#I just felt alienated in such a weird way

[soliloquent-stark]

Hi, would you have any baby's first Stony fic recs for a stucky shipper?? Like I want to read Stony but literally have no idea where to start or how to get there without feeling like "wait, where's Bucky?" if that makes any sense

Tysmia!!

hi! congrats and welcome :) i want you to know i am taking this task very seriously! i am a big bucky lover so i don't read bucky bashing fics anyways, so pretty much any rec of mine is okay from that sense, but i understand the difficulty in switching ships or having your fav absent.

so, i thought the best way to get acquainted with stevetony would be to read fics that contain bucky, or past stucky, or focus on learning about tony from steve's pov (since i assume you're most familiar with his perspective and character, so then you can fall in love with tony together). i also added some stuckony ones in case that's your cup of tea, but feel free to skip those. 💕

ps. almost all these are mcu, but let me know if you want comics/au recs too. but overall, for more recs, you can check this tag.

music by @treesramblings

Steve turns seventy-five today. Tony has a special plan in place to show Steve a happy birthday.

I used to use liquor to get me inspired (but you look so beautiful) by @underwhelmingalchemist

Steve was used to Tony's flirting. It was weird and slightly annoying, but it was just part of who he was. It was always surface-level compliments, comments on his ass and thighs, teasing him about his "pretty face". But when he was drunk, those comments turned to something sweeter and much more genuine.

more after the cut

Triple Espresso by @festiveferret

Everything is going great for Steve. He loves his boyfriend, his apartment, his pets. He finally has some opportunities to share his artwork, the coffee shop he manages is doing well, and Bucky is about to finish his exams, which means no more night shifts. It finally feels like life is on track. And then Tony Stark walks into the cafe and everything goes off the rails.

5 Times Bucky Thought Tony Was Good For Steve +1 Time He Told Him by Anonymous

To say Bucky is unimpressed by Stark would be an understatement. It isn’t that he dislikes him. It’s more that he’s a brand of indifferent that curdles with disdain on the rare occasion that Bucky catches him on the TV: Stark is glib and crass in a way his father never was, and he wears suits like he’d slipped out of the womb clad in Armani. So it’s a surprise when Bucky moves into the Tower and finds that Steve actually gets along with the guy.

some words build houses in your throat by only_more_love

The night before they travel back in time, Tony says what he needs to say.

A Partial Dictionary Of The 21st Century By Captain Steve Rogers, US Army by @copperbadge

Steve is adapting well to the new millennium, and he has the dictionary to prove it.

Equilateral by FestiveFerret

It was the way Steve had said, “I found him,” the desperate, agonized hope, that had Tony replying with, “Bring him home,” without any hesitation. But now, now he was hesitating like fuck.

felt with your two hands by @ishipallthings

Steve lets out an exasperated huff. “It’s just, I can’t shave.” It’s such a small thing to be upset about, and yet here he is, fighting the urge to tear his bandages just to look clean-shaven again. One glance at Tony shows that he’s surprised by Steve’s admission, eyes now fixed on the days-old scruff covering the bottom half of Steve’s face. (In which Tony helps Steve with shaving, and the close proximity leads to so much more than either of them anticipated.)

Feels Like Home by @tinystark616

Steve thinks there must be something fundamentally wrong with him when adjusting to his new life seems scarier than fighting an army of aliens. He knows how to fight. He's excellent at it. What he doesn't know is how to feel like he belongs in the future.

Catching Up Fast by Catchclaw, Crowgirl

Tony doesn't see the other guy coming, is the thing. Best mistake of his life.

everybody needs some affection by @meidui

It's for Steve's sake, Tony tells himself as he befriends Bucky. (But then it isn't.)

last call by @gottalovev

Tony didn’t prepare for Steve calling first. It's been thirteen months, why now?

Operation: Knuckleheads by FestiveFerret

Bucky is enjoying his new, post-Winter Soldier life at Avengers Tower, until he discovers that the constant tension between Steve and Tony was caused by a recent (and mysterious) breakup. Determined to make his friends happy, Bucky gives himself a new mission: figure out what went wrong, and get these two idiots in love back together again.

[satellite-blossom]

As a French guy currently on vacations in Quebec : I get why North American are so big on these "liminal spaces" pictures : everything is so large here that when there's little to no-one in those environments you just feel minuscule, fragile, vulnerable and terribly lonely.

When there's at least three lanes on each road and the parking lots are bigger than ten Parisian apartments and there's barely anyone out there at the moment, you just feel like the smallest creature ever, lost in an endless void.

That much to say I went to a Micheal's in such a zone and I felt so unsettled. It didn't feel real, it felt like a weird dream. Kinda like an empty videogame level.

[uncanny-tranny]

You know... it's okay to trust your body. If you are separated from your body to such an extent you feel you cannot trust it, I truly from the bottom of my heart empathize and feel grief for you, but you can trust your body.

It's okay to listen to your body and to heed what it is telling you. I wish you (and your body) well wherever you go. You deserve the peace of mind to feel able to do what you want.

[quietwingsinthesky]

sometimes i think about my spn oc and how i rewrote everything about amara to interact with the story i was trying to tell about her. there were some really neat ideas in that i need to recycle for something one day. like, in the show proper, they just let amara take over a human baby and that’s fine, but amara’s not Meant To Be Here. this entire universe is one constructed in her absence. saying she can possess a human body should be like saying if you took a person and sent them to a universe where 1+1=3, they could just figure out how to function within that.

which in story took the form of Amara being something that could not be Understood, only Rationalized. a force locked outside the narrative who could only get inside and destroy things if given a role within it. by the Winchesters as A Monster To Face. by Chuck as Wayward, Unreachable Sister. and by miss oc as. simultaneously a projected creature to be saved, an amalgamation of injustices done to herself (and others) that would never be righted but could be made up for by being a part of this. and as something impossibly powerful that could be both protection and purpose.

and the Darkness wasn’t any of those things, really, but to have agency in her own story required new shackles, but ones she was always straining against. she wouldn’t fit inside the confines of a human mind, let alone a body, at least not well enough to leave it Intact. like lucifer burning through nick, but Worse. because the burns were an expected outcome of skin not strong enough to hold him. humans were built for angels, some were built better and some worse, but they’re meant to work. putting amara in human skin should disconnect the skin and mind and soul from the reality her brother built itself, i think. slowly. bit by bit.

and at the same time, i’d gone and written the kind of wild scenario you really can only write for your thirteen year old mary sue, given that spn oc the part of herald/high priestess/failed vessel. which she pursued with wild abandon like that would fix anything wrong with her <3

in the end, running alongside the borrowed family theming of the original show was my own theme of “how much self-annihilation will you accept to make your point. are you accepting it, really. or are you seeking it.” not just physically, in letting something unmake the base components of what you are as it tries to fit inside you or in it constricting and suffocating itself beyond self-recognition to get inside in the first place, but, obviously, it’s supernatural, how much selfhood do you cede to your family. is it worth it.

it was interesting, if nothing else. let thirteen year old me cook. she had ideas.

[saturno-sol]

Yknow maybe it’s not a good thing to have kids with a ten year+ difference between them.

[235uranium]

back from the barbie movie and I certainly have Thoughts on what the movie was doing but overall I do think it's worth seeing! it's fun

[britneyshakespeare]

i dont know where to scream about this but i honestly feel some sort of weird relief that r//nbow high is declining. i knoooow i know it's popular and they've been such high quality dolls and collectors have loved them and some(?) people like the web series (or do they? ive heard mixed things but ive never had any interest in watching it) but oh god. i just. sometimes it takes me awhile to appreciate modern doll lines and their aesthetics but i just could not get past their weird fish faces and in general i do not like monochrome styling themes. i realize their designers did so much with their concepts, i realize a lot of heart and effort went into them, and i completely understand why so many people were floored with the quality of the dolls and the rate at which they were being put out. even though the prices kept rising for them, you could at least see where your money was going, like they were always so well-constructed and doing new things. but like. at the end of the day. on a very basic level they were just never all that aesthetically pleasing to me and it was kind of maddening to see all that potential going towards a line of dolls that had just... like... facial proportions i could not get past lol.

[lakewinnipeg]

much has been said abt this phenomenon but it does suck emotionally to have the gender/presentation mismatch of feeling good about how you look but the way you look gets sorted by default into just being a Woman but then that causes other problems cuz the interior experience absolutely does not buy into any narrative of womanhood or girlhood

[legionofpotatoes]

can't believe I just spent three hours watching a movie about masculine anxiety in the nuclear family model, told through cartoon alien tribes wearing Mãori tattoos

[lonesomedotmp3]

what if I got a tattoo...

[seilon]

hm

[on-stolen-sunbeams]

missing my home city so much right now

[nataliedecorsair]

I wanted to give you some of Pticenoga's Borderlands AU backstory, how she was raised by Shade and before starting her shenanigans with Vaughn.

Plus a bonus comic about how she decided to set up a meeting for Vaughn and Shade, but didn't tell Vaughn who is supposed to be there x) Mostly because Vaughn has met Shade before in his macabre World of Curiosities museum and thought that Shade is too weird for him. Well, that's the kind of person that would raise a feral harpy siren, gotta deal with it!

When she was very young, nothing bothered her much as she was just a wild baby exploring the world x) And Shade was a good father figure to her. However, as she grew older, she realized that she doesn't really "fit in": yeah, Pandora is a crazy planet, but not every person there is crazy. There are plenty of "regular folk" like Shade or other people from their town - and many others. And she was frequently called a monster, a mutant and many other things by the regular kids and even adults. She was wild though, could bite them or fight with them in a pretty feral manner, and, even though she protected herself, it didn't help the situation much. She wasn't crazy enough (and too small) to fit in with the psychos or bandits, was "too human" for actual monsters living on Pandora, and for a long time she had no idea she was a Siren, as even for Sirens she looked too different. Only when she hit her teens, she was able to confirm that she is one, started using her powers, and in her human form she could see the full extension of the glowing pattern she had on her skin. She still, however, didn't know why she wasn't born "normal", and there were no older Sirens around.

At some point, she decided to become independent and live on her own. Her "wild" upbringing was helping that a lot, and she felt fine being away from people. She'd still visit Shade frequently, of course, and at some point she'd even met Zer0 and could hang out with him for some time. As Zer0 is a mystery himself, they had some common ground between them (though constantly listening to his haiku were exhausting xD). Sadly, Vault Hunters attract attention, not always positive, and that was the reason why she got spotted by a big bandit gang (could be the beginning of Vallory's gang, but before she took over). And local scientists like Tannis already declared that there may be some connection between Sirens and the Vaults. And they noticed that she's a Siren, but also pretty young (and dumb). After the first Vault on Pandora was opened, there was plenty of weird and valuable stuff around, but it wasn't so easy to get it when you're just regular bandits. And when Eridians, the aliens that are guarding the Vault, are everywhere. The Sirens like Lilith were too strong for them, and hiring a Vault Hunter is expensive, so they decided to wriggle into her favor and use her to gain access to the area. She didn't know she was dealing with bandits first, she naively thought it's a rare case of nice fellows just wanting to be friends and such, plus the Vault could have answers about her origin, and the new "friends" confirmed it.

At some point, she realized she was being used, and got into a fight with the bandits - and lost, as there were too many of them, and she had too little experience, and they knew about Shade. She got kidnapped and told that she'd do everything they told her to do, or they'd kill Shade, so she had to obey. She helped them to fight the way to the Vault and get some of the riches, and during the process she felt that she really does have a connection with Eridians - they boosted her powers and helped her to get free, and kill every presenting member of the gang. She was worried about Shade though, so she left immediately to find him before the remaining members found out what happened and could harm him. But she was too late - the water source in their town of Oasis was poisoned, and every single person there died. Except Shade though - he lasted longer, but dehydration made him insane, and he turned corpses into the stuffed dummies he could talk to (though she didn't have much of a problem with this part). As she was gone for at least several months, he didn't believe she's real, and she had to adapt to the new reality.

She never got back to the Vault after that as she felt it was a source of more trouble than anything good (in her view, the price was too much for a bunch of physical stuff).

That lasted for years, and became a bit easier as her powers, enhanced by the Eridians, wasn't only serving the destruction,  but could eventually "heal" some part of Shade's mind, so the moments of clarity became more frequent (she didn't know it's the reason, though). And you still need money, whether you like it or not, so, when Shade decided to use his World of Curiosities as a spot of illegal deals and smuggling, she didn't resist, but would watch over him in the shadows in case something goes wrong.

Eventually, she calmed down and just embraced herself. And, after some time, she met Vaughn, whose personal struggles she could sense right away, as she had to experience "being different" herself.

[hadoriel]

If I used Spotify my wrapped would just say 'you listened to music a total of two times this year, both at the dentist'

[suiana]

guys imagine being an attraction in a zoo and having a yandere! alien zookeeper??

basically you're a human right, and these aliens captured you one day because humans are a dying species and they're endangered and stuff 🤑 so then they put you in a zoo enclosure that's reminiscent to human apartments based on what they read in books because it's cute.

all day long you just sit around in your enclosure and do random ass things while getting gawked at by aliens who try touching you through the bars of your enclosure. you felt like a lesser being. i mean, that's what humans were to these aliens anyway.

the only one who treats you like a decent and equal being is the zookeeper who has a rather odd attraction to you. he doesn't touch you without your consent, calls you by your name instead of just 'human', and even gives you food that you like! plus, he's just so sweet! turning red whenever you two are close to each other, trying to learn more about human culture...

it's just that he's a little weird.

lingering gazes, the constant monitor checking, asking about how humans show love and stuff... if you didn't know better you'd have thought he was in love with you! haha... not like he is one, right? he's just doing his job. learning more about humans and stuff... haha...

but you trusted him. he took such good care of you after all. he'd never try and hurt you. and he's an alien anyway, albeit a handsome and attractive one. he wouldn't be interested in you, a human, of all things.

that is, until, another human gets captured and put into the same exhibit as you. they wanted you two to copulate-to continue the bloodline you know.

that's when you started noticing your zookeeper acting up. you noticed how his lingering gazes and questions about love quickly turned into threats against the other human who didn't even want to be there.

surely your weird but sweet alien zookeeper wouldn't do anything, right? your poor roommate doesn't even like you that way! your caretaker would definitely see that right?

wrong.

one day, you were sleeping until you get rudely awoken by the scream of your new roommate.

"oi quiet down will you? I'm-"

"sorry my dear, go back to sleep."

standing in front of you was your alien caretaker, drenched in the blood of your mangled roommate. a sickeningly sweet smile was on his face as he held your roommate's now limp body by his... crushed head? you couldn't even recognize your roomie's body anymore.

"it's okay, I'm sorry you had to see that. humans get startled easily don't they?"

startled was an understatement to what you were feeling right now. you felt like you were about to vomit out your guts.

you watched as the red liquid dripped from your alien zookeeper's arms, the smell of iron overpowering your senses as you black out. this is all just a dream. it's just a dream. it has to be. when you wake up, you and your roomie will be perfectly fine in your cute little enclosure.

however when you awoke, you found yourself in a completely new room with pictures of you plastered all over the walls. realization seeps in as you hear the familiar voice of someone you should've never trusted.

"you're awake, my dear. how are you feeling?"

man you were so fucked.

[a-mint-bear]

Courtship Rituals

Male Yandere x Reader

So… that's definitely space outside the window. It's been a week since you woke up on this ship, and the weird alien who keeps checking in on you is… nice enough. But something about him seems off...

____________________________

"I see you're doing well, starlight."

He’d been checking up on you more often lately. At least you were pretty sure they were a "he". Since his voice started getting translated by the device on his temple, it was sounding decidedly masculine.

Since you’d woken up on this ship, he’d been keeping an eye on you. At first, you’d been terrified, and rightly so. Waking up to an eight-foot-tall, armored alien staring at you had been too much. After screaming and throwing things, and more screaming, he'd seemed unbothered by your reaction. He tried talking to you, but it just sounded like chirps and chuffs, like a big cat. He'd done his best to communicate, but nothing was coming across.

With a defeated hiss, he disappeared for a day or so. You’d attempted to get out of the massive, round bed but the sudden movement made your vision swim and a nauseous feeling crashed over you. With so many questions still bouncing around in your head, you were frustrated that all you could really do was wait.

You had a dreamless sleep, the night sky trailing on endlessly outside the massive floor-to ceiling window that made you feel all the more insignificant.

____________________________

When he came back the next day (maybe?), you finally got a good look at him. His face was the only vaguely human thing about him, save for large, dark eyes that glowed in the dark and odd scales on his cheeks and forehead. He had pointed ears that almost looked like they belonged to a bat. They swiveled and twitched, especially when you spoke. He was rarely expressive, though you did see him attempt a smile from time to time. You say "attempt" because it was way too wide and revealed far too many sharp teeth. It set off some ancient instinct in you to stay the hell away. You tried to ignore it but still kept your guard up just in case.

A keyboard-like light panel that projected from a device on his forearm chimed as he tapped away at it, and he approached you with a metal circle no bigger than your thumbnail, matching the one he wore. You backed away, hyper-aware of the stranger's touch. He… purred at you? And while you were distracted, he tapped it to your right temple.

There was a sharp pinch, the pain pulsing away with your heartbeat. When you cried out, he was quick to touch his long, clawed fingers to yours, maybe trying to comfort you.

You could hear the device whirring away against your skin, latching onto you and beeping intermittently. You’d never felt anything interacting with what felt like your brain before, and you could say without a doubt that it was NOT great.

The noises stopped, and a low, almost ghostly voice purred in your ear.

"Communication link established. The device should be fully functional now…"

“Hello there.” His clawed finger caressed yours, soothing your pain. It eventually faded, that purring of his actually seemed to help. “I hope your rest has helped you overcome your transfer sickness.”

From then on, any time he talked to you, it swung between intelligent, endless technical talk that one might expect from this extra sci-fi guy and…

Awkward small talk?

"Lovely weather we're having today." He smiled that horrifying smile of his, sitting on the end of the bed.

With an awkward glance out the window, you had the thought that there was, of course, no weather in space.

"Have you read any interesting publications as of late?"

You shook off the odd nature of the questions, cutting to the chase.

Why were you here?

"Of course, I've brought you onto my ship for the… hmm. It seems there is no exact translation for it." He seemed puzzled, tapping away at the device. "The closest term that I can find is… ah. The Courtship."

You froze.

Courtship?

He seriously abducted you to… woo you?

And here you thought that was a cliché for extraterrestrials…

That would explain the awkward small talk. But it was still too weird.

You tried to get to the bottom of all this. You took a deep breath, trying to calm the wave of anxiety that had yet to wash away.

You had no idea as to how he would react to you just saying “No, take me back to Earth.” So, you’d have to ease into it, gauge his reactions.

You told him your name. He mulled over it, mispronouncing it a few times before growling a little. It made you freeze, your brain was again screaming “Danger, get away from here NOW”, but you needed to keep your head.

“If I could, it sounds… very similar to the word my people have for… the closest translation I can come to is the… electromagnetic radiation from self-gravitational fixed plasma points that are visible to the naked eye. Starlight… yes, that will suffice.”

If he weren’t an actual, literal alien, you would swear he was upping his word count to sound smarter. But you had no clue how this translator worked, maybe it just pointed him to the closest words to what he wanted to say.

But it seemed you had a nickname. A very romantic-sounding one. Great.

You asked him for his name in return.

"Yes, my designation. My species has little use for such titles." He brushed off the notion with a shift of his dark eyes, staring into yours again. "We do not interact with one another to require such differentiation. I have heard of my people taking a title assigned to them by their mate, for their own assurance, as we mate for life."

He leaned to be closer to you, his face uncomfortably close to yours. You guessed he was kind of handsome, for a literal alien… But that wasn’t any of his business.

"Would you like to assign me a title, my starlight?"

He was thinking of you… as his mate? Already? Or was that just an example? You’d literally spent less than a full day actually talking with him and he was talking about mating for life? It was all too much.

You didn’t want him to assume you were okay with any of this, but it might help him see you in a better light. Make you a person in his eyes, and not just a (hopefully temporary) guest on his ship. Maybe even sympathize with you when you asked him about turning the thing around and taking you back home.

You combed your mind for anything that would fit, digging deep for your middle school astronomy/mythology phases.

You asked if he would be okay if you called him Cygnus, only telling him it was the name of a star back on Earth. But it stood out with his casual “mate for life” comment, even though he resembled a dragon/cat more than a swan. Not to mention the story of an otherworldly being making advances towards someone he really shouldn’t, as Zeus once did to Leda.

“Siig…nussss…” he hissed out the last syllable, his tongue flicking out over the strange word. “Cygnus… I will cherish this title, starlight.” he nuzzled your hand to his scaled cheek, purring again. Before you could say anything else, the panel on his arm went off with a sudden alarm.

“Apologies.” he stood, tapping at some of the keys. “I must attend to something.”

Before Cygnus could step away from the bed, you panicked, reaching out and grabbing his hand. He stared at you, a curious purr slipping out before he knelt by the bedside.

You held his large hand in yours, pleading with him that you couldn’t do this. You had a life, he took you from it and this was all too much. You just wanted to go home.

His expression never changed, but he touched your hair, seeming almost entranced by it. You wondered if this alien would take pity on you, if he could be persuaded to do the right thing.

“Ah, you seem to be misinterpreting something.” You could see the realization in his dark eyes. “The language barrier is beginning to become a hindrance.”

He held your hand in a placating way, patting it gently like he had seen someone do the same thing without knowing much context.

“The Courtship is… something my people have been doing for eons. They believe that genetic variation is the key to a long-standing civilization. No two of us are genetically similar to each other after a few generations. We have varying appearances and life expectancies. We visit a faraway star system and… take a viable mate from the populace. Some do this at random, some monitor their prospective mates to assess compatibility.”

“After searching for so long, I found myself interested in the humanoid species of Earth. The longer I observed, searching for my perfect mate, the more I became… intrigued by the courtship rituals I observed.”

“You engage in meaningless banter where neither party really cares for the answer. The lingering touches, the subtle glances. Small meaningful gifts or large shows of extravagance to display to the prospective mate that they can provide. And dancing… I was especially intrigued by how your species uses such a thing for showcasing sexual compatibility. The Courtship is such a… straightforward and dull undertaking by comparison.”

“I saw you, just walking alone…” His eyes were shining as he looked at you, that damn purring started back up whenever he paused. “I’ve heard from others of my kind that we just… know. And when I saw you I knew…I knew you were my mate.”

The way he said it, it felt like you stopped breathing. He was looking at you like… like a predator who’d finally cornered their prey. That’s what your brain had been warning you about.

“We take our mate aboard our ships and begin… this word isn’t coming across. I will do some research… Regardless, this is not traditionally a… harmonious process?” he tilted his head, still as emotionless as before. “No, perhaps… consensual is the better term.”

You didn’t dare to look away from his eyes, that horrible, terrified feeling clawing down your back. You suddenly wondered if you’d ever seen him blink.

“That particular element of The Courtship continues to be necessary.”

Cygnus caressed your cheek, you could feel his claws gently touch your skin, they were blunt and curved. You were suddenly reminded of how some claws like that weren’t meant to tear and slash, but rather pin and capture.

Words completely failed you, not that you knew what to say. He leaned forward and kissed your forehead.

“Get some rest, my starlight.” he touched his forehead to yours, nuzzling you as he purred. “I’ll court you as long as it takes.”

He stepped out of the room and left you to your own devices, and you went into the “flight” option of fight or flight. There was no obvious way to open the door to the room, no handle or lock, just a slab of metal that stood out from the surrounding wall. You tried to rattle it, push on it, kick it down. But it didn’t budge.

The little thing on your head beeped, and it seemed to communicate with a robot eye-looking thing above the door. It lit up in recognition of your device, but then blinked red with a quick negative-sounding chime. It was confirmation of something you already suspected, but didn’t want to accept.

You were locked in. You’d probably been locked in the entire time. Cygnus’ calm demeanor made you think he could be reasoned with, made to see you were your own person who deserved to live your own life.

You slid down the door, collapsing into panicked tears.

It was clear that he saw you as anything but.

____________________________

Affectionately nicknaming the alien yandere "Siggy" in my head. because Cyggy looks a little silly, but either are acceptable.

with his face it's possible that there was a human somewhere in his lineage, way way back when. it's mostly surface level, as he doesn't even recognize it in himself. to be fair, there's no one way his species is "supposed" to look.

His people do the whole "alien abduction" thing to reproduce, probably not in the old-fashioned way but more of a gene-splice-y way, but it's still a terrifying practice.

it's been a hot second since i posted anything, started my new job and i tend to get into a creative slump when i get into work mode. but sitting down at my actual computer to write this instead of editing it on my phone or old tablet did the trick.

now im sitting here thinking "does he have a tail?" and now im debating it lol. he probably definitely has those legs, you know the ones. google tells me it's called digitigrade.

and that "armor" is really just like... a scaley exoskeleton. but not really, more like a crab shell that would grow back if damaged or ripped off. it protects his soft, vulnerable body. he molts it every year and he gets super embarrassed being seen without his "armor" ha

until next time, i have to get some work done ✌️

edit: art of Cygnus