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intheshadowsbehindyou · 9 months

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The Mercs react to Y/N telling them they have PTSD:

WARNING: FUCKING LONG.

Scout:

- He nods along slowly as you explain this. He might be incredibly childish and confrontational towards everyone but he’s not short of knowledge he learned in college, and personal experience. He seems to understand.

- Scout looks beyond terrified as you describe what happened to you. He doesn’t understand why something so terrible would happen to somebody with so much value.

- He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s had childhood trauma himself. He goes “My brothers weren’t nice when we were little..” He then refuses to elaborate. This was his attempt to empathize with you.

- He sits there on the side of your bed with his head in his hands. Bouncing his knee restlessly. You could’ve swore you heard a sniffle.

- He’s trying to make his emotional state unnoticeable. But it’s clear to you that he cares. The attempts to hold back his tears say it all.

- If you ask for physical comfort he won’t hesitate twice. His petite body surprisingly feels muscular. He’ll lock his arms around you in a huge hug and won’t let go. He rocks you like a small baby.

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Soldier:

- Freezes up. Like straight up goes stiff. You swear he’s cosplaying as a statue. He’s facing away from you with his hands behind his back as you explain your trauma. You can’t see his expression.

- You think he might not understand and you give up on trying to explain. But then he turns around and goes “No, private. I understand how you feel.”

- Wait what??? Not to be rude or anything but soldier isn’t exactly the brightest when it comes to certain stuff. He’s mostly focused on complete chaos of war and the mayhem he so blissfully causes to his targets. With little room for stuff like psychology. But he sounds surprisingly stoic and understanding.

- As it turns out, whilst he didn’t serve in the US army directly nor has PTSD from the war, his nazi killing spree gave him some pretty horrible insight on what tragedy can do to people. Seeing the look on your face.. It’s the same exact look that young children had when he freed them from camps. (Via blowing the camps up of course.)

- He sounds surprisingly mellow as he comforts you with hugs and reassuring back rubs. Unlike his usual loud and vibrant way of speaking. This is vulnerability you didn’t even know soldier was capable of.

- He has a deadpan look once you finally catch a glimpse of his face underneath that helmet of his. Almost distant and exhausted. He experienced empathy burnout instantaneously.

- “I’m sorry. I know.” Is all he can think of saying. Repeatedly.

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Demoman:

- He’s pissed. Not at you, but at the people who directly or indirectly caused this. You can see righteous anger flaring in his remaining eye as you explain all this baggage to him. He taps his finger on the table impatiently.

- “Bloody hell, this world has nothing but injustice after injustice. And den’ dey wonder why it’s so fucked up. oh, I don’t know lad! Maybe it’s because people like you are stupid as shit!” He goes on a rant about the people involved. He spews drunken threat after threat, waving his bottle around as he talks about all the different ways he could play jump rope with their intestines.

- He immediately drags you into a bear hug. You can hear the venom dripping off his words as he swears that nobody will ever hurt you that way again — Not on his watch. You can hear him breathing heavily against his vest. His breath sounds like a growl. He’s had explosive rage before at the enemy team (pun intended) but this seemed to be his worst yet.

- He puts his entire weight on you, and shields you with his large bulky body. It was like having a giant great dane lay across you protectively. Ready to snap at anything that came near.

- God forbid somebody actually attempts to talk to you today after this revelation. He’ll be watching them closely to ensure your mental state is at ease. The last thing you need right now is another stressor. He becomes increasingly overprotective for the first few weeks.

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Engineer:

- Similar to soldier you can’t seem to understand the expression under his goggles at first. It’s rather unreadable. He sits across from you in his workshop with his hands supporting his head in relaxed position. But as you go into more detail his body language becomes more and more tense. He stops relaxing and instead sits up in the chair and crosses his arms to self soothe.

- He pinches the roof of his nose. His head down in thought. At this rate he can’t even make eye contact with you. He’s distressed about something.

- The gears are turning in his head. “Pardner, are you tellin’ me you had all this shit on your back, and you never even thought of telling me?”

- You profusely apologize, mistaking his behavior for anger. But he’s far from angry. “Hush now, hush.” He wipes your tears away with his gloved metallic hand. You could feel the hardness of the mechanism underneath.

- He sits there with you for an extremely long time. Wrapping you in a blanket that his mom knitted him, and lovingly rubbing your tummy, sides, and back. He seems to know the surface layer concepts of comforting someone with severe trauma. He let you know he’s there, and he’s not going anywhere. That it was in the past and it will remain there.

- You are loved. He really wants you to know your value. He’s hooked on letting you know, in fact. How much you didn’t deserve such terrible things.

- He whispers kind and loving things in your ear. My god, it sounds like velvet to your eardrums. If ears could cum then yours would. His southern drawl is enticing you to relax.

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Heavy:

- Uh oh..

- Yeah, no. quite possibly more pissed than Demoman. You can tell because he’s dead silent and staring out into space with the most malicious intentions in mind. Usually an angry heavy is a loud one, but you were kinda nervous seeing the boiling kettle of a man.

- But unlike Demoman he doesn’t voice his intentions. Let’s just say whatever they are; I recommend you keep him far away from the people involved. Because they’ll likely end up the most gruesome crime scene imaginable. He doesn’t take kindly to stuff like this.

- Due to being a very family oriented person he immediately introduces you to his sisters and mother over the payphone. Because that was usually the thing that made him feel safe. His sisters immediately take a liking to you, and you can hear girlish giggling over the phone. They think you’re cute. No wonder Heavy felt so safe around them.

- “You will become like Heavy’s family. Da?” He asks. Offering you a place amongst them. He knows stuff like this calls for community. He knows it heals people. “And heavy will protect you.”

- You randomly find gifts of food on your bed stand if you have a particularly bad PTSD day. Especially honey cake. His mother always made him that whenever he was upset. They always have little notes attached to them. Small poems about self love.

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Pyro:

- Responds in a very “WHAT THE FUCK??!!” type matter. They’re disgusted and shocked. They immediately hug you without second thought and squeeze you. (A little too tightly.)

- Out of all the mercs, Pyro has to be the most outwardly emotional. They can’t stop bawling about how terrible they feel. They’re crying so much over the thought that that a delicate anomaly of nature had their heart stomped on repeatedly and destroyed.

- Their love language in this situation is nothing but physical affection and kisses. They are so worked up at this revelation that not a single word of encouragement can come out of them. They know they can’t take back what had happened to you. All they want to do is just that.

- Over the next few days, Pyro’s mourning for your mental health quickly manifests less as sadness and more as hyper caregiving. They protect you more fiercely on the battlefield and Spycheck on the regular. They seem more committed to their job and less dissociated than usual. They don’t seem very up to jokes right now.

- Pyro knows trauma is no joke. They know that full well. They become more responsible and ask their colleagues to leave you alone if you feel too stressed. They’re capable of detecting a potential flashback and immediately take you into their quarters to relax from triggers. The expression on your face says it all. You can’t hide anything from Pyro.

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Sniper:

- Shit. god dammit. Fuck.

- He’s laying in his camper van’s bed with his face staring at the ceiling. The entire time he has a look of complete dismay plastered across his face.

- Sniper isn’t exactly the most vocal Merc, but to your surprise he has a lot of things to say about this. Primarily how confused he was that someone like you could be handed such misfortune in life. At least in Sniper’s case he felt like he deserved it.

- His first initial reaction is to get your mind off it. Acknowledging your problems, he pulls out a camera from a box underneath his bed and retrieves a slide viewer. Slipping photos into it and showing you the pictures of Australian wildlife he took before entering the gravel wars. Attempting to ground you back into modern day by reminding you these animals are indeed still around.

- “Ya know, there’s animals everywhere. Isn’t it crazy to think that while we’re in here, a bloody tiger is goring a boar and whatnot? And the boar is absolutely shitting itself? Sometimes it’s hard to imagine we were part of that world once. That we’re still animals. Just really intelligent. It’s easy to mistake ourselves as unlovable gods when our nutty piss mongrel asses can’t even remember a time where we weren’t atop the food chain. We set unrealistic expectations for ourself.” He says, giving an example that everybody is worth while. (This is the same guy who kills anybody by the way.)

- “Just.. What i’m saying is that it’ll take a while for you to heal. I’m here to help with that, mate.” He mutters. He seems pretty against being emotional but it’s not like he has much of a choice in this situation. He deeply cares about you. You’re nice to him.

- There is content silence after a while. After looking through the photos by himself one last time he sighs and plops the device back into the box. You were laid neatly on him, cuddling tightly. He put one hand on your back and rubbed it. His other hand dangling off to the side.

- “S’aight mate.” He says, having no clue how to process the fact you somehow ended up atop him.

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Medic:

- He takes intrigue to your situation. He stops dissecting the specimen he was eagerly studying the anatomy of, and has two fingers on the screw of his glasses. Giving you a raised eyebrow. His curiosity is evident and you can practically hear him thinking. Moving his lips as he tried to internally go over the symptoms of PTSD listed in his brain.

- He’s not surprised that you have PTSD. At all. Somehow he suspected something was wrong the moment you joined the team. No mentally healthy person acts like you do. But that’s okay. His overanalyzing of your mannerisms and behavior seemed to have paid off.

- “Ah yes, post traumatic stress disorder is actually very common with people from your situation. It is treatable.” He says, going for the route of reassuring you this won’t be forever. Dr. Ludwig refuses to show his true emotions to you. Trying to adopt a professional demeanor. He’s losing his mind on the inside and devastated. You catch a glimpse of his smile faltering once or twice.

- For some reason as you’re talking he’s moved away from his project and began writing down notes. Something akin to what a therapist would do. You can see he’s jotting down some of your experiences and symptoms to himself.

- “What medication do you take?” “Oh. Mhm.”

- He puts the temple of his glasses between his teeth and takes his gloves off. Heading towards his pill cabinet above the sink and setting down a bottle in front of you. The label is in german and it somehow looks.. Homemade. This is a terrible idea but this is Medic we’re talking about here. A man who is capable of fixing every problem inside a human body with just a simple snap of his fingers. Maybe if you’re lucky this won’t kill you.

- The medication doesn’t kill you, luckily. It’s very similar to prozac. It’s really a flip of the coin whether or not this aids you, but in the meantime you catch him pacing around his office reading self help books and books from psychologists. He seems eager to understand you. He SWEARS he doesn’t care. He’s just — uhm — doing this by habit because he’s paid to! Yeah! Wow, he really doesn’t want you to know he cares.

- While you’re asleep in bed he periodically begins cracking your door open and taking a peak at you, to make sure you haven’t awoke from a nightmare, or are lagging behind your sleep schedule. the shine of moonlight reflecting off his glasses makes him look rather horrifying. Sometimes if he thinks you’re fully asleep he’ll sit on the bed next to your unmoving body for a while and crosses his arms, looking at the floor. Like an incredibly anxious parent would keep their baby company when sickly.

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Spy:

- Stands silently in the shadows of the base, you can barely see his slim figure. But you can tell he’s listening intently. Unlike the others, you’re the only one he can truly tolerate. There’s a slightly depressed expression on his face as he takes drags of his cigarette. Looking down at the ground.

- “…Pour l’amour de dieu.” (For fuck’s sake.)

- He says nothing afterwards. He lets you vent however long you like. Let out your emotions, even cry. Which you eventually end up doing. He doesn’t complain and paces a little. His eyes still at the floor. Finally after a while of hesitation he raises his arms and offers an embrace. If you choose to hug him, he will do so in what can only be described as an incredibly grandpa-like matter. Back patting, rocking, and mumbles of sweet petnames in french.

- He baby talks you. Take that as you will. He sees you as incredibly adorable individual and because of this new problem he discovered you have, he feels a sense of responsibility that he must aid it in any way he can. Especially considering this man had caused unholy amounts of trauma to people in the past.

- He asks you what you need. Where you need it, and when. How can he make this recovery process easier for you? He even politely offers to kill the people involved. Elegantly going “I assure you, if it is repent for their sins you want, I can arrange that.” Wow thanks Spy.

- Depending on the trauma, he may react more strongly to daddy issues. Prepare to hear a series of new made up slurs specifically created for your father, by yours truly! If any parents are involved in general he’s going to become sickened and repulsed. Jewel-clutching type repulsed. He bares his teeth and shrinks away. nervously fixing his tie. “Ack.. And people think I have a horrible moral compass? Not even I would do something as distasteful as that.” He hisses.

#team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 x you #tf2 x reader #medic x reader #demoman x reader #heavy x reader #spy x reader #sniper x reader #pyro x reader

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thenukacolachallenge · 10 months

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In defense of the One Piece Live Action Adaptation’s stylistic choices: A Cosmetologist’s Perspective

Hello! My name is Dia, and I’ve been a licensed cosmetologist since 2015(almost a decade now!). For those unaware of what exactly that entails, cosmetology is traditionally defined as ‘the professional skill or practice of beautifying the face, hair, and skin’. For me specifically, I have worked in the fields of hairstyling/haircutting/hair coloring, skincare, nail care, and makeup application(both traditional makeup and FX makeup) in my eight years of being licensed to work in these industries.

The reason I’m making this post today is to talk about the Netflix adaptation of the hit manga/anime One Piece, and specifically to address a lot of complaints I’ve seen about the wardrobe, makeup, and hair choices of the main cast thus far. I’ve seen quite a bit in the way of complaints, and a lot of it seems to be, to put it as politely as I can, not based in reality of how makeup, hair, and acting in general works, and I’d like to address some of it to possibly explain why certain choices were made, to maybe help people come to a better understanding of the why and how of these sorts of decisions.

I’d like to also, before I dive in, note that I am not in any way, shape, or form affiliated with this production! These are merely my personal thoughts and speculation as someone with some experience in this field. None of this is set in stone unless I provide evidence from the cast and crew to back my claims up. As well, I’d like to point out that I have next to no experience working on film sets(I have worked on VERY small productions in the past, for things that go up on sites like Youtube and not Netflix lmao), but I am married to a person who has a degree in film and has worked on live production sets before, and I did defer to them for a lot of the knowledge that I lack with live action production specifically.

I’d also like to point out that while I’m not mad at anyone who has the critiques I cover in this post, I may come across as a bit exasperated. I promise this isn’t me being angry at anyone, but more of just.... I’ve seen the same critiques over and over again, and to me, a lot of the choices seem fairly obvious as to why they were made, and some of the critiques come across as extremely silly to me. This is of course due to my own background related to these sorts of things. I promise I mean no offense or disrespect to anyone saying these things! I just want to make this to be able to help others understand why production may have made the choices they did.

Now, under the cut, I’ll be discussing some common complaints I’ve heard with regards to this production, and provide some potential explanation as to why these changes were made. On to the post! It is quite hefty, so please bear with me.

First and foremost, the most common complaint I’ve seen thus far is some variation of the phrase “I’ve seen cosplayers that look more accurate to the characters than this show does,” and I’d like to address this one first, as I think it’s the one that probably frustrates me the most. It specifically frustrates me because comparing cosplayers to actors feels like an apples to oranges situation. The two groups are designed to do entirely different things! Cosplayers do typically look more like the characters they portray than a live action actor will, and that’s a very common occurrence, but there’s a reason for that: the two groups are not doing the same thing.

Both cosplayers and actors put a huge amount of time and effort into their work, and I love cosplay personally. However, cosplayers are typically in their outfits for 8-10 hour days at most for a weekend, doing things like photoshoots where they have to pose, walking around conventions, and maybe filming a small amount of video(Not to say that this takes no effort! Please do not take this as such, I have helped friends with cosplays and I fully understand and appreciate the level of dedication and hard work that goes into it!). Actors, on the other hand, are in hair and makeup on set for 10-12 hours a day(if not longer) for weeks to months on end, and have to be fully in character while filming, as well as(specifically for a show like One Piece) doing things like stunt work, being submerged in water, and being on boats with lots of wind and ocean spray. There are certain things you simply cannot do, hair/makeup/costume-wise as an actor that you can as a cosplayer, so I really don’t think this comparison in specific is being very fair to the actors and the crew who are in charge of makeup, hair, and wardrobe in this case.

I’ll be getting into a lot more specifics below, but I will be deferring to my main point here very often, which is this: The safety and comfort of the actors is far more important than 1-to-1 accuracy in the way cosplayers can do, especially for minor changes in appearance.

Now that I’ve addressed that specifically, I’d like to move onto some common complaints I’ve heard for each specific main cast member, and my opinion on these complaints, as well as listing potential reasons as to why these things may have been changed!

We’ll start with everyone’s favorite funky little pirate king, Monkey D. Luffy:

For Luffy, the number one complaint I’ve seen is the live action’s choice in shoes. in the manga/anime, Luffy wears and fights in flip-flops, but this was changed in the live action. This was changed for a very simple reason, and Emily Rudd, the actor that portrays Nami, actually addressed this on Instagram while being asked by a fan:

Simply put, trying to do the kind of stunt work that Luffy has to do is not safe in a shoe like a flip flop. This is something that falls very completely under my original point of the comfort and safety of the actors being more important than 100% accuracy. It would be entirely too easy for Iñaki or someone he’s in a scene with to get hurt if he weren’t wearing the proper footwear. Fairly simple explanation there!

This is really the only gripe with Luffy costume-wise I could find, to be honest! I have seen a few people saying that he doesn’t have his signature undereye scar, but he does, although it’s not as visible as it is in the original work:

They kept him fairly true to the spirit of his original character, and although I don’t know why they chose to give him this specific potato shoe footwear, it is what they went with, and the main takeaway is that it was for safety reasons.

Onto our favorite wayward booze-loving swordsman, Roronoa Zoro:

Similarly to Luffy, I’ve only seen one main complaint regarding Zoro, and it involves his use of swords. In the anime/manga, Zoro has pioneered a specific fighting style called “Santoryu”, known in English as “Three Sword Style”: one sword in each hand, and a third in his mouth.

I’ve seen several people wondering where his third sword(the one that goes in the mouth) is from the trailers, and I was initially wondering this as well, since in most of his action scenes that have been revealed so far, he seems to only be holding either one sword or two. However, there was a brief clip(I’m talking, like, maybe one second) of him utilizing his three-swords style in the teaser trailer released in mid-June:

Now, as to potential reasons as to why this seems to be the only clip of him thus far using all three of his swords:

1. Again, this could be for the safety of the cast. Obviously being a cartoon character, Zoro wouldn’t have to worry about potential damage to his jaws and teeth, but Mackenyu, Zoro’s actor, is a real person who does have to worry about such things, especially as an actor who relies on(among other things) his facial expressions to earn a living. Carrying something like a sword, even a prop sword, in your mouth for long periods of time cannot be good for the health of your jaw and teeth, and I could understand if they chose not to film him with a sword in his mouth very often for this reason alone. 2. It could also be he uses all three swords less often so he can still deliver lines while fighting. In an SBS(”Shitsumon o Boshū Suru”, when translated means “I’m Taking Questions”, essentially an AMA for mangaka to answer questions their readers may have), Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, once answered a question about how Zoro was able to talk with a sword in his mouth with quite a funny answer:

Sadly, in real life, Mackenyu cannot speak through his heart as Zoro does, so it’s possible that some of the scenes have been changed for ease of dialogue. 3. It’s also entirely possible that he uses his three-sword style as often as he does in the anime and manga, and the small amount of what we’ve seen in the trailers isn’t necessarily the full picture. I imagine this is something we’ll have to wait for the full series to drop to find out definitively one way or another!

Now, onto our lovely citrus-fruit-loving navigator, Nami!

I have seen two main complaints with Nami’s looks, and I’ll start with her hair, as it’s the more common one I’ve been seeing. I have seen a large number of people saying that her hair looks like(and I am slightly paraphrasing here) “a bad cosplay wig”, and honestly? I think this is just not true, and either comes from unrealistic expectations or just plain being mean-spirited.

First and foremost, this is very obviously human hair:

Now, I don’t know what kind of bad cosplays y’all have been seeing, but the ones I’ve seen start with synthetic hair wigs, not human hair ones(This is not to say synthetic wigs are inherently bad for cosplay! Simply that they are much harder to work with, though they are cheaper than human hair wigs). As well, I know for a fact Emily Rudd got her hair done similarly to this, to the point where I wasn’t actually sure that this WAS a wig at first(this picture comes directly from her Instagram account):

This is very obviously almost the exact same haircut as the wig chosen for Nami, save with more layers, and even the color choices are similar. To say that this wig looks like a “bad cosplay” is honestly just flat-out wrong in my professional opinion, and moreover, it’s quite rude. In addition, to me at least, it really looks like the wig was styled to resemble anime-esque hair, which is actually quite common among cosplayers. If anything, I have the same complaint on Nami’s wig that I also have with Sanji’s(which I’ll definitely be touching on later): it’s not thick enough. Both Nami and Sanji’s wigs just seem like they could use more hair attached to the cap in general, but especially for Nami’s, I really don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying.

I think this “bad cosplay wig” complaint specifically is mainly coming from people who only see the tail end of cosplay productions, which tends to be photos that are often times edited to look a certain way, which can often include doctoring the hair. There’s nothing wrong with a cosplayer editing their photos, for the record, but it can absolutely give unrealistic expectations to those who aren’t familiar with this practice, and I personally think this may be where these comments are coming from. Obviously you cannot photoshop every frame of a live action production, at least not without a lot of time and effort on the behalf of the post-production team, and I highly doubt Netflix would have greenlit something like that for such a small detail. It’s simply not realistic.

As well, I do find it quite interesting that I have seen far less complaints about the wigs of characters such as Zoro or Sanji(played by Taz Skylar(as stated previously, I have seen complaints about Sanji’s wig and I will be speaking on that later)) than I have about Nami’s. I’m not saying it’s outwardly misogynistic, but it does make one consider such things.

The only other complaint I’ve seen directed towards Nami’s live action look(and truth be told, I’ve seen this one far less than the comments on the hair) is the discrepancy between Emily Rudd’s eye color and Nami’s. As you can see from the above photos, Emily Rudd does not have brown eyes, which are the color of Nami’s eyes:

Now, I didn’t actually see this complaint until after the first full trailer dropped on July 21st. Specifically, I saw someone saying that it seemed strange that Steven John Ward, who portrays Dracule Mihawk in the series, is wearing colored contacts to better resemble his character, while Emily is not.

Now, there could be a lot of potential reasons for this, including that Emily may simply be not wearing colored contacts because they irritate her eyes(going back to my original point of the comfort and safety of the cast). But more importantly, I think, is that Mihawk’s unique eyes are directly related to his character, specifically through his epithet: Hawkeye. This is a seemingly important enough part of his character, to the point where it’s directly mentioned in his title. Nami has no such distinctions with her eye color, so I really don’t think it’s as important, and at the end of the day, it takes nothing away from her character to have a different eye color. So, while I don’t know the particular reason she doesn’t have brown contacts, I also don’t think it’s nearly as important for that detail to be as canonically correct as it is for Mihawk. To me, this particular comparison is another apples to oranges situation.

Onto our beloved liar, God Usopp himself:

Of course, the number one talking point I’ve seen about the live action Usopp is that Jacob Romero Gibson, Usopp’s actor, is missing his trademark long nose.

As One Piece fans know, one of Usopp’s characteristic traits is his tendency to lie. His name, Usopp, comes from a portmanteau of the Japanese word “uso”, which means lie, and Aesop, the famous Greek storyteller and the namesake for Aesop’s Fables. Because of his propensity towards tall tales, Usopp’s anime and manga character designs also added a reference to another character who’s known for lying, Pinocchio, whose nose grows when he lies. Thus, Usopp in his cartoon form has a long nose!

Considering how many gags in the story involve Usopp’s nose, a lot of fans were surprised to see that aspect of him not carried over into the live action. After the drop of the official trailer, seeing that the character Arlong had his signature sawshark-esque long nose in prosthetic form, there was even more confusion about this choice.

(As an aside, Arlong’s costuming choices will not be discussed in this post, as it’s long enough with just the main cast, but believe me, I do have Opinions on it lmao)

Now, as to why the show chose to not give Jacob a prosthetic long nose to better match Usopp’s appearance, I don’t know the specifics. I can only speculate, and really, the only things I could feasibly come up with are the following:

1. It’s entirely possible that for whatever reason, Jacob is unable to wear a prosthetic nose. This could be due to several things, including allergies to either the prosthetic material itself or the adhesive used to attach it, or the makeup required to blend the prosthetic into his skin. If this is the case, then it of course goes back to my main point here that the comfort of the cast takes precedence over accuracy to the source material. 2. The only other explanation that really makes sense to me is that they did in fact attempt the nose in costume fitting, and either the absurdity of it was just either too distracting to audiences/the crew/Netflix execs/possibly even Oda himself, or it could have potentially been a problem during stunt work. Usopp primarily fights with a slingshot, and I have no experience with slingshots so this is just me taking a stab in the dark, but it’s possible that the extra length on the nose could have possibly messed with the actor’s depth perception while attempting to act out Usopp’s fight scenes.

Overall, I genuinely don’t know why they decided to axe Usopp’s long nose. But at the end of the day, I know that for me specifically, this is a minor detail, and not something I see as a genuine problem, nor will it ruin the immersion for me. That being said, I can definitely understand the criticisms here. I’m hoping that a lot of these changes will eventually be answered, perhaps in some behind-the-scenes footage that comes out after the show’s release.

The only other comment on Usopp’s costuming that I’ve seen is much more easily explainable, and I also haven’t seen nearly as much in the way of commenting on it: Usopp’s hair is not in dreads in the anime and manga, and instead is kept natural, especially before the timeskip.

As we can see in the above picture, Usopp seems to keep his hair fairly natural, whereas Jacob, Usopp’s actor, sports dreads in his portrayal of Usopp, as seen in the above photo.

Luckily, I haven’t seen very many comments on this, and I think that’s a good thing, since the explanation seems fairly simple to me. Usopp in canon is based off of (mostly unused in this day and age, for good reason: a lot of the design is highly based off racist blackface caricatures) old-school anime portrayals of Black/African people. As well, in an SBS, a fan asked where the Straw Hats would be based out of if One Piece was set in the real world:

As stated above, Usopp would come from Africa! As well, if I recall correctly, Oda had a hand in casting the live action adaptation, which all points to the undeniable proof that Usopp is and has always been intended to read as Black/African in some form.

The reason I bring this all up specifically, is because of the way African hair grows. Obviously not all Black/African people are a monolith, and even among curly haired people there are different curl tightness and growth patterns, but for a large portion of people of African descent, their hair would not grow similarly to the way Usopp’s is portrayed in his cartoon form. His hair is indeed curly, but it grows down, similar to most wavy or straight hair types. This is especially evident in his post-timeskip hair growth:

Usopp’s hair, which was once above his shoulders before the two year time skip, now extends down past his shoulders. This is not necessarily inaccurate to Black/African hair types, as, since stated previously, different curl patterns and tightness exist, and even with super tight curl patterns, if grown out long enough, the hair will eventually grow down, due to the weight of the hair strands. But for a lot of Black/African hair types, the natural hair tends to grow outwards, instead of downwards(or at the very least it grows outwards before it begins to grow downwards). This type of hair is typically referred to as afro-textured hair, and is the namesake for the afro, a hairstyle wherein someone with afro-textured hair combs out their natural hair growth in the shape it naturally grows.

Now, I’m not familiar with Jacob Romero Gibson’s work prior to One Piece, and I have never seen his hair without his dreads, therefore I can’t say with 100% certainty how his hair grows naturally. However, he does have an Instagram account, and on this account he has photos of himself. I looked through his account, and although he doesn’t seem to have any photos of himself without his dreads(indeed, they seem to be his signature hairstyle) as an adult, he does have a few photos of himself from his childhood. I don’t personally feel comfortable linking his baby photos to this post, so I’m not going to do so here. However, they are visible there, and from what I can see from those photos, he does indeed have afro-textured hair. This may not be 100% accurate to how his hair grows now as an adult, as lots of things can change hair growth types and curl patterns, including things such as hormones, medications, stress levels etc. In my professional opinion, I feel fairly confident in saying that Jacob most likely has afto-textured hair, and therefore his natural hair likely wouldn’t fully grow in the exact same way that Usopp’s does.

Overall, I only bring all of this up to say that if Jacob did have his hair in a natural, non-protective style in his portrayal of Usopp, I feel that the same people who are complaining about the dreads now would likely complain that his natural hair doesn’t match Usopp’s exactly. Either way, Usopp’s hair is not a huge characteristic that defines who he is as a character(especially not in the way that his nose is), and therefore I don’t think that him having dreads in the live action takes away from the character in any way.

Finally, we’ll discuss the Straw Hat crew’s first-rate cook who attacks through kicks, Black Leg Sanji:

Sanji has the unfortunate position of being the character who’s had the most changes to his design from his cartoon to the live action, and there’s a lot of criticism that’s been lobbed his way. Some of it I think is fair, but there’s also quite a bit that I think is honestly quite silly. So without further ado, I’ll go through the four main critiques I’ve seen, and my opinions of each.

Let’s start with the one I’ve heard the most often, and the one that’s easily my least favorite to hear about at this point: the missing eyebrow swirl. Maybe it’s just because Sanji is personally my favorite on the crew and I’m just paying the most attention to him, but my god, the way some people are going on about the eyebrow, you’d think the showrunners made the decision to axe his signature curly eyebrow specifically to spite the Sanji fangirls. I think a lot of the complaining about the lack of eyebrow swirl would simply be changed to complaining about how bad the eyebrow swirl would look if they’d tried to keep it, and I’ll explain why below.

Like many of the costuming changes made to the live action adaptation, I don’t know the exact reasoning as to why they decided to get rid of the eyebrow swirl. As someone who has worked as a makeup artist, however, I do have a theory as to why they got rid of it, and my theory is fairly simple: it is just not really very possible to create a realistic-looking eyebrow swirl that reads well on a film camera.

Yes, the makeup team could have very easily drawn on a swirl with a brow pencil or some pomade and called it a day. However, it would have been fairly obvious that it was in fact drawn on, especially on a film shoot. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the missing swirl point to both cosplayers and stage actors as “proof” that it could be done, but again, this is an apples to oranges situation. Stage makeup(like that used for stage actors), photoshoot makeup(like what cosplayers would employ), and live action film makeup are three entirely different types of makeup application, and while they each have their own merits, that doesn’t inherently mean they translate into other mediums, and this is something that you have to learn fairly early on as a makeup artist if you want to continue getting work. If you are doing makeup professionally, you have to keep a lot of things in mind, one of the biggest things being how your work will read on camera, specifically the camera your canvas will be in front of. You have to keep in mind things like flash photography, shine versus matte, whether or not post-production editing will be involved, and the like. A fairly popular example of this is makeup influencer James Charles’ old meet-and-greet photo, which has become a meme since surfacing. Charles was used to only doing makeup and being photographed a certain way, leading to him using a setting powder that didn’t lend well to flash photography, and made him look like he was wearing makeup that was far too pale for his skin tone, when in reality it was just a makeup product that didn’t work for the kind of camera it was in front of:

Another example is basically the entire Cosmo Queens video series done for Cosmopolitan magazine’s youtube page, and I’ll use Kandy Muse’s video as a specific example, since she uses her natural brows in addition to her makeup. This series focused on the makeup of drag queens, and it’s very obvious when watching these videos that there’s a huge discrepancy between makeup meant for the stage and makeup meant for other avenues. Drag queens typically are live performers, and there is a common saying among drag artists, which is to “paint(apply makeup) for the back of the house(so that even those in the back row can see your makeup)”. On stage, Kandy Muse’s makeup is quite stunning, but it’s very clear that it’s not fully meant for the editorial style that Cosmo uses during these videos:

Even from a distance, you can very clearly see where Kandy’s real eyebrows sit versus her makeup. And while this is obviously an extreme example, it’s even more obvious when zoomed in, which film cameras have to do often in order to capture the expressions of their actors:

In a similar vein, film cameras, which are typically designed to catch a lot of definition and lend better to a more realistic look, likely would not be very kind to a drawn on part of an eyebrow. Without any hair growing there naturally to make the eyebrow makeup look more realistic, it would be very obvious that it was makeup, and would likely be more distracting to audiences(especially first-timers to the series; it’s important to keep in mind that Netflix would want to cater to those people as well as long-time One Piece fans) than omitting it entirely would. In addition, we have to take into account the actor, Taz Skylar, and his natural hair growth and the direction of his brows.

As is visible from the photo, Taz Skylar’s natural brow grows downwards at the end, whereas Sanji the fictional character’s brow grows upwards into his swirl at the end. In order to match the character 1-to-1 and change his own natural features, Taz would have to either shave/pluck/wax the entire outer half of his brow(which for an actor would be extremely inconvenient for other projects and would be an absolute pain to grow back out), or he would have to sit longer in the makeup chair to have his brow covered by FX makeup, which takes extra time and effort and could throw off the timing of the entire shoot. In addition, neither of these potential fixes would necessarily make the obviously-drawn-on swirl look good and read well on film. Add on the facts that Taz’s character is fully submerged in water in at least one scene, if not more, and has several fight scenes, and it’s not even a guarantee that the makeup swirl would even last throughout the shoot.

I’ve also seen people say that they could have added the swirl in post, but I think that’s it’s very unrealistic for Netflix to greenlight that for a minor detail such as a singular visible eyebrow.

While I am very sad that they weren’t able to translate Sanji’s signature brow to the live action adaptation, I think a lot of the complaints regarding him not having it and insistence that the production should have included it are entirely overblown, and are mainly being made by people who don’t have a lot of knowledge of what goes into film makeup versus other types of makeup. And while Sanji’s brows are fairly important to his character, this fact doesn’t actually come into the story until far after the timeskip, and we don’t even know if the live action will get another season outside of this one. I really hope this can help explain why they may have made the decision to nix the brow swirl for people who are still concerned about it, since from what I’ve seen, it seems to be the number one point of contention when it comes to live-action Sanji.

Next, I’d like to speak a bit about Sanji’s hair. Now, I have some complaints of my own about the wig used on Taz, but most of the criticism I’ve seen regarding the wig actually revolves around why it doesn’t cover his eye completely, as Sanji’s hair does. This is something that seems fairly obvious to me: Taz has to do a lot of stunt work, and he needs to be able to see! This is a potential safety issue more than anything else, and therefore goes back to my main original point. As well, there’s no real way to make the hair not move without completely overloading it with product, which, again, would be very obvious on a film camera, and likely wouldn’t read nearly as well as people think.

As for me, my personal critiques around the wig are just how sparse it is. Sanji has a lot more hair than is in the wig, and I really think a wig that had a little more hair attached to the base would have looked better. As well, I don’t know if the styling of the wig works for me personally.

I was actually really hoping that the live action adaptation would take cues on Sanji’s hair from the character who Sanji was modeled after. A lot of people still to this day think that Sanji’s appearance is based off Leonardo DiCaprio, specifically his role as Jack Dawson from the hit movie Titanic or his role as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, but Oda has actually explained in an SBS that this isn’t the case:

Sanji’s looks and his “vibes” are based off of Steve Buscemi’s character Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, and personally I would have loved to see his live-action hair more closely resemble that, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Another critique of live action Sanji is that he hasn’t been depicted with his trademark cigarette, and I kind of knew that this would happen from the moment I found out about the live action adaptation. This is not the fault of Tomorrow Studios(the production company), or even Netflix at large, but instead this is largely based off backlash from anti-smoking lobbies.

(As a former smoker myself, I have a lot of opinions on the ridiculousness of anti-smoking groups going after smoking in fictional scenarios like films and shows, but that’s a gripe for a whole other post lol)

Netflix notably caught a lot of flack for the depiction of commonplace cigarette smoking in other series, such as Stranger Things, even though the series takes place in the 1980′s, where smoking was incredibly commonplace. The major backlash even got to the point where you can actively see the drop in depictions of smoking between each season. I am hoping they at least give Taz one scene with Sanji’s iconic cigarette, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. I doubt Netflix wants to deal with that backlash again.

Finally, the last big complaint with Sanji’s wardrobe I’ve seen is his signature suit, specifically regarding the fitting of it. Sanji’s suits in the anime/manga tend to be fairly fitted in nature, while the live action once Taz wears, while still having a slightly tapered fit, is a bit baggier than what Sanji typically wears.

This is a fairly straightforward change, in my opinion: if the suit was as form-fitting as Sanji’s are, Taz(and his potential stunt double(I don’t know if he did all of his own stunt work or not)) simply would not be able to move the way Sanji does! This is an issue of cartoon versus reality: Oda is able to depict his characters doing whatever they want in whatever clothing they want. However, real life is sadly not as accommodating, and because of that, Taz’s suit has to be a bit less form-fitting so he can still do all of Sanji’s signature footwork. Going back to my original point, the sacrifice of the fitted suit had to be made so the production could actually work.

I tried to touch on all the biggest differences I’ve seen people talk about, and I hope this was helpful to anyone who may have been curious as to why some of these changes were made. Please let me know if I missed anything big or if you have any additional questions/need me to explain anything further, I love what I do and I love being able to have insight like this. Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, and please reblog if you found this post helpful or informative <3

#one piece #one piece live action #one piece live action adaptation #opla #tomorrow studios #dia drabbles #a rare case of nonfiction in my writing tag lol

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richeeduvie · 15 days

Note

baby can't find her wedding ring one morning and roman is immediately panicking/convinced someone came just to take the ring. he knows it was on the nightstand when they went to sleep because he always kisses her ring before she takes it off.

this is why he never takes his off, especially not for bed, who cares about preventing arthritis?🙄

they don't find it until they see baby jr playing with bear baby and bear roman. bear baby has the wedding ring on her left paw, (no wonder why baby jr asked which hand wedding rings go on yesterday) she really had to squish as much of the stuffed paw as she could through it.

roman calls off the cops...

"Roman, there is no possibility someone could've came in here to take my ring-"

"Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I know. So that means you're fucking with me?"

"No! I must've knocked it off the stand last night-"

"Yeah...but we checked the floors of the bedroom. So you're fucking with me." Roman scratches his neck. "Or we're both spiraling, but this is symbolic - you're going to leave me. Or there's a goblin under the bed who spent her twenty slutting it out and now time's run out, she's cosplaying a woman's who's loved."

You sigh.

What the fuck is he talking about?

It's cute, but also concerning, how he's spiraled humorously so quickly. Just him, because you're sensible enough to know the your ring has to be somewhere.

"How about we ask our daughter?"

"She doesn't know anything about goblins. But look what happens, see? Want to become unattached to me in your sleep? Look what fucking happens."

"You're going to get a perpetual cramp in twenty years because you never take your ring off, Roman - it's-"

"Yap, yap, yeah. Okay, let's go ask her. But someone came in and proved my point. I'm fucking betting on it. But okay, let's go! Honey!"

Roman makes his way out to your little girl's room, you would smile at the sound of her humming coming closer as you follow him. But you're stressed on the skin because it's your wedding ring lost. You wear it everyday, it's the band Roman slipped onto your finger as he cried pathetically and perfectly. It's also insanely expensive for something that's just silver. But it's priceless and you don't understand where it could've went.

"You can't can't bite me. Yes I can, chomp chomp. Kiss kiss."

Roman and you, you both stop in your tracks at the sight of her holding B. Roman and Evie Mommy, your ring squeezed onto that stuffed hand of hers.

"Eat me! Ma...."

She's still in her pajamas, a perfect thief.

You can't help but smile and Roman stares, not because he can't help it - he wants to, he'll take any moment to watch her, even if you know his heart hurts in the way it does when he's a father to someone so little and beautiful and perfect, perfect, perfect.

"Good morning. Daddy, can I borrow your ring? Please please? Thank you."

She turns back to her bear and doll, playing happily.

"I don't think she's very goblin like, Rom-"

"Shut up. I was joking. I was scared. Can we have pancakes?"

You sigh, kissing his neck.

"Apologize."

"Sorry, Mommy. I didn't guess her. Why would I?"

Roman goes to sit next to her, taking his ring off and smiling stupid when she tries her best to shove it on B. Roman's stuffed paw. His elbow on his leg and hand under his chin.

You know he didn't guess her because she would never make him panic like he did then - 911 on dial and hands in his hair, no. He couldn't have guessed that, not when he's so suddenly happy in watching her play with your bands and bears.

#inbox #hc's #drabble #dog and bone!au #roman roy x reader #succession fanfiction

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risestarkiss · 5 months

Text

Rise Ramblings ○ Full Title List

PART TWO

Donnie | Taste Buds • Being Purple ○ Part One • Subcutaneous • Being Purple ○ Part Two • Sneeze • Achooie! • Knight • Good Eats • Flavorless Juice • Breathe • Smile • Fav Donnie Moments • Fuzzy Nerd Dice

Leo | Duality • Smarter • Moves • Jazzy Fresh • Fav Leo Moments

Michelangelo | Orange, Baby! • The "Ba" in "Baja" • Cosplay

Raph | Swallowed • Comfortable • Care Bear • Find Out • Lashes!

Splinter | Being Hamato Yoshi

○○○○

Disaster Twins | Mixed Up • Turtle Blinks

Smarts & Crafts | PB&J

Slushie Duo | Saddle Up

Sunrise Duo | Sunrise, Sunset (Poll)

Mad Dogs | Cheeky • Flyer • Race • Strength • Snatched • Socialized • Coiffed

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murd3r0u55ilh0u3tt3 · 3 months

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TWST with Ice Bear reader

Ice Bear is one of the main protagonists of the how We Bare Bears and is the youngest brother of Grizz and Panda.

You woke up feeling a little warm instead of cold. You thought that there was a power outage since the fridge isn't working. You decided to open the door but surprised that it wouldn't budge, so you assumed that Grizz and probably Panda might be playing a prank on you. Oh well, you'll just go back to sleep since you know it's breakfast time and they'll be hungry and let you out....Wait a second, your axe isn't here.... (⁠‘⁠◉⁠⌓⁠◉⁠’⁠).... Why isn't it here? Even Grizz would never mess with your stuff.... Something is wrong --

"Fnyaagh... gotta get those robes fast!" .....Ok, that definitely doesn't sound like your brothers. You kicked the lid open before Grim could set the coffin ablaze.

The little monster freaked out why aren't you unconscious and chased you around. You didn't have time to take in your surroundings as your path was finally blocked by a wall of blue flames and now you're face-to-face with a panting Grim, only for the monster to be binded by a whip.

A man with some kind of crow cosplay now yelled at you for being too impatient. You didn't really sense threat so you followed him. What is he talking about? Having magic? Opening a gate? Enroll in college?You think that Panda's anime hyperfixation influenced you that much...

You reached a room and you immediately put your guard up after seeing students who totally don't look like cult members. A mirror wanting to know your name, you didn't answer at first until this Crowley person is yelling at you once more.

You stated your name, silence followed and snickering filled the room. "Ice Bear?What kind of name is that? " Is he trying to say his alias?" " Ugh,just say your real full name..." " Great. Another weirdo..."

"I sense no magic in this beast. Colorless and shapeless is their soul. No dorm is suited for them."

The whole room gasped and soon Crowley ordered you to take your hood off. You took the entire robe with one shrug.

The entire room froze with shock and soon they started firing off magic with their pens followed with shrieks. "GAHH! THERE'S A MONSTER IN THE SCHOOL!" "CALL THE GUARDS! SEND IT OUT!" "HELP! GET IT AWAY FROM HERE!".... okay, now you are hurt emotionally. Back in your city, the people wouldn't care that you're a bear... Well maybe there's a bit of racism, but this is a whole new level of low.

While the students are busy freaking out, Grim managed to escape the lash and started to set things on fire ... A collar appeared on your neck and Grim's as a short red-headed boy states a rule about bringing animals to a ceremony. The headmage asked who's familiar you are and you said you aren't one and that Grim is not yours either.

You asked where you are which the headmage finds odd about you speaking in third person but answered anyway. You said that you weren't supposed to be here and the headmage nodded and said that originally, he was going to let you leave with Grim but came to the conclusion that the Ebony Carriage must have seen potential in you.

And plus, he cannot just abandon you-- ".... Ice Bear can find job--" Why don't the headmage take you in and find a way to your world, hm? Doesn't that sound marvelous? Oh, what a kind and generous headmage he is!

.... ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ..... That was your reaction after seeing Ramshackle both outside and inside. Grim is now your dormmate which you find annoying, and now you are the school's janitors which you don't find troublesome since you have cleaned..... Far worse (Grizz's room).

So the story hasn't changed much, just the students gossiping about you and Grim causing a ruckus during the ceremony but they were more weirded out that you are not a monster but a talking bear with no magic.

Ace starts talking shit about both of you should'nt have enrolled because you're monsters, blah blah blah. You tried stopping Grim and he still made a mess. Now you have to wash a hundred windows.... You are this👌🏻close to skinning Grim with a rake. Ace left you guys, you chased after him, met Deuce who is also shocked that you're a talking bear, chased Grim, broke the chandelier, and now you have to face this blot monster... Great. Just great.

You easily beat it with your makeshift axe. You also used your martial arts to beat it since it's movements are slow. You told Grim not to eat the rock but guess what? He ate it.

By the way, Ace and Deuce were pretty impressed that you can make an axe out of stone, vines, and wood in a short time during the retreat and Deuce asked you to teach him the same stunts you pulled on the monster.

So you retrieved the crystal in record time before Crowley could even print the expulsion papers and now he promoted you and Grim to being the first monsters to enroll in Night Raven College!

You sometimes find it uncomfortable to wear the school uniform, so you just settled with a neck tie with NRC's symbol on it. People still find it fascinating that a new race can enroll in. Your friends find it unique that you speak in third person but that just adds to your charm.

The Adeuce reminded you of your brothers so you're mostly protective over them. Azul is pulling his hair right now because you keep declining his offers for money in exchange for your talents. You are always neck and neck with Rook in terms of skill and athleticism, especially during the Beanfest event..... Lots of students are gonna need therapy after that. Lilia enjoys using the cucumber prank on you and shared the videos with Idia and Cater. Sebek, Malleus, and Silver thank the seven if you are volunteering to cook for Diasomnia. You find Jack, Jamil, Silver, Malleus, and Trey a lot more tolerable than most of your friends.

You're just hoping that your brothers are not burning the kitchen down, or thinking of replacing you. You really missed them... But mostly your little Roomba.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #twst #We Bare Bears #We Bare Bears x reader #Ice Bear #Ice Bear x reader #Twisted Wonderland headcanons

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bread-and-roses-too · 3 months

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Demonizing menstruation doesn't help spread information, mysticizing menstruation doesn't help spread information. Going completely neutral is the only way forward.

Periods are an expulsion of waste. They're no more gross than pissing is. The social etiquette of "excuse me I have to go to the bathroom" shouldn't change because someone puts a pad in their pocket before they head off.

Period blood is blood, along with endometrial cells. It isn't more dangerous or gross than the blood that comes out of a wound. It should be treated with the same level of caution because of the potential for disease transmission, but it's not some toxic sludge that you're going to die from looking at wrong. If blood gets on a nonporous surface a simple antibacterial wipe will remove it and prevent the spread of most potential diseases. For a nonporous surface like fabric soap and water may be enough, or hydrogen peroxide if the stain is stubborn. More careful steps may need to be taken if the blood may or does contain HIV, but it's important to remember that HIV can only be contracted by blood-to-blood contact or sex. Blood from a person with HIV isn't that much more dangerous than regular blood, just try not to touch blood directly in general and wash your hands correctly after handling soiled objects and you'll be fine.

Periods are not your body "punishing you" for not being pregnant. Your body is just a container for you, it doesn't have any feelings that you don't have. If you don't want kids but feel guilty about not having them, it is not your uterus making you feel guilt. That's you being reminded by your period to feel guilt because you were conditioned growing up to view everyone with a uterus as valuable only in terms of their ability and desire to carry children. Anthropomorphizing the function of your reproductive system is the way you deal with the guilt of not living up to your societal "purpose" of bearing children. Everyone who doesn't have kids, has kids late, or has a journey regarding children that's different from the societal norm deals with that to a certain extent, although people who were raised as girls/women tend to deal with it more. It's a line of thinking that you will likely need to work through, either alone or with a sympathetic therapist, in order to be content. Also, if your periods feel like a punishment that could be a sign that something is wrong.

Periods aren't supposed to disable you. Cramping should be at a "oops I ate something that didn't quite settle with me" level not a "cosplaying as a wounded animal" level. You should be able to pop your over-the-counter pain medication of choice and not have to think about the fact that you're on your period aside from the occasional bathroom trip to change your menstrual product. Bleeding through pads or tampons on an hourly basis isn't normal. Fainting from blood loss or pain isn't normal. Being unable to complete daily tasks, or completing them with difficulty, due to pain is not normal. Nausea or vomiting that interferes with your ability to stay fed and hydrated isn't normal.

Irregular periods can be normal, some people just don't get periods on a consistent schedule. Going more than 35 days between can be a sign that something is wrong. Going more than 90 days without a period, sometimes called "losing" your period, can be a sign that something is wrong. If you don't want to have a period, forcing yourself to "lose" it through starvation, overexercise, or stress is not a safe way to do it. These behaviors can have other long-term consequences, including premature death. Hormonal birth control can be taken consistently, skipping periods, with no excess effect on fertility or personal health that we're aware of.

Emotionality is normal before and during your period. Crying at a cat video that you would normally scroll past without thinking is normal. It's ok to be frustrated with emotionality, it can be annoying to feel out of control. It's also ok to withdrawal from others for a short time when you feel unable to socialize. Panic attacks, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of interest, and other major mood disturbances are not normal and can be a sign of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). PMDD is as serious as other depressive disorders and can lead to suicide.

Your reproductive system isn't self-contained, it's connected to the rest of your body via blood supply and other mechanisms. Even if you plan to have a hysterectomy or other permanent birth control at some point it's still important to get "period problems" checked out to ensure the rest of your body isn't affected.

People deal with their periods how they deal with them and it's none of anyone's business. Someone isn't lazy for not feeling up to activities during their period. People who eat junk food on their period aren't "making themselves feel worse". Judging someone's choice in menstrual products is so fucking weird and rude, yes I am judging you back. People who skip their periods using birth control (hi!) aren't ruining their bodies with chemicals. People who choose not to use birth control or don't use it for that purpose aren't choosing to suffer for no reason. People are infinitely complex in the ways they choose to deal with inconvenience and challenge and tearing each other down for not being the same is unproductive. Period stigma can only end when we work together, trans and cis, intersex and dyadic, all gender presentations, races, sizes, and abilities, to make it work.

In the theme of the last paragraph, if anything in this post is incorrect or uninclusive, please let me know and I'll fix it asap.

[image ID: a banner that reads "TERFs and SWERFs DNI].

#periods #menstruation #feminism #inclusive feminism #intersectional feminism #the menstruation masterpost

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yeehawbvby · 5 months

Text

Falling Away With You | Ch. 48

Sebastian x F!Reader and M. Rasmodius x F!Reader

Rating: Mature/Explicit

Chapter Summary: Y/n goes a little apeshit at JojaMart lmao

Author’s Note: *Crawls out of a pit covered in dirt and blood. Slaps this chapter down in front of you, on a SUNDAY no less!*

My health situation hasn’t improved whatsoever, but I will prevail, damnit!!

I wrote most of this and posted to ao3 early this morning, and haven't had a chance to proofread really. I'll do my best to get that done soon ^.^ Sorry if there are any weird wordings. Also sorry for the complete lack of Seb and Magnus in this one, I hope the shenanigans make up for it <3

Table of Contents + Work Summary

Check it out on ao3!

Prev | Next

I hate that stupid, cryptic, blue note I got.

Ever since it came, I think about it every time I check the mailbox, without fail. I don’t want to, I kinda just want to forget it exists, but I just… I dunno. I have a bad feeling about it. A gut feeling. Like, something’s totally up with it. It’s just been sitting in my closet for safekeeping until I decide what to do, though.

For some reason, I’ve been too nervous to bring it back up to Magnus. He’s forgotten it exists, from what I can tell. I think I’ll do my best to keep it that way for now. It feels more like my burden to bear than his, and besides, he’s already got the whole region to take care of.

After today’s confirmation that I don’t have bills or anything important like that, I head inside to get ready to leave the farm. Reeeally hoping my routine will shake out my heebiejeebies.

I got the OK from Magnus to use his fancy shrine for Spirit’s Eve. Got an idea of what I think I want to make myself look like, too. Maybe a tiefling or something. If tieflings don’t really exist, I’m sure some sort of succubi, or imps, or some sort of creature that looks like one’s gotta, no? I suppose I could always fall back on just pretending I’m an elf… man, a tail and horns would be so fun though.

Either way, tomorrow is the big day and I am so ready for it.

I mean, like, almost ready. Whatever.

Today I’m going to Magnus’ place to get some practice in. Just a precautionary measure to try not to, like, blow myself up or something.

I’m gonna keep my outfit cozy and easy to move around in, but I have half a mind to make sure I wouldn’t mind losing these clothes in particular if something goes wrong with the transformation. Just some leggings, some crew-cut socks, an old hoodie, and my favorite boots, since I won’t have my shoes on in the shrine anyway. All of it is in black. Sebastian cosplay.

I’ll pop my red studs in too, gotta commit to the bit. I haven’t had time to talk to The Emo and see if he actually did get his shit pierced last night, but assuming he did, and assuming he was able to use these for it, I wanna go all out, baby.

Now, before I head to the tower, I’ve got some errands to run around town. I woke up a bit late so there’s gonna be more people out than I’m looking forward to, but hopefully I have no creepy Alex encounters or awkward conversations with Shane again.

I promised Sam I’d visit him at work sometime soon, so I might as well head there first. He hates it there, and it’s been a while since we’ve caught up, so I’ll hopefully be a welcome distraction. I’ll bring him a coffee too to keep his spirits high.

After it’s done brewing, I grab two foam cups and pour the coffee in. Knowing Sam, he probably needs this stuff sweet, and I’m in the mood for sweet too, so I pour in a bunch of vanilla-flavored creamer. To make the beverages ~gourmet,~ I add a little whipped cream to each, as well as a light drizzle of chocolate syrup. After securing the plastic lids and giving Cannoli some well-deserved love, I head out.

While I pass by the bus stop, I make eye contact with Pam. I’ve never spoken to her, but… I dunno. I can’t tell if I like her or not. She gives me a nasty stink eye and I can only further assume she’s as mean as she outwardly appears. Unless she was just cursed with an intense resting bitch face...

I smile Pam’s way anyway. She doesn’t smile back, but that’s okay. It doesn’t benefit anyone to be so judgemental of her.

I pass a few local moms once I make it to the town square. None really mind me, which could mean they either didn’t notice, or they don’t care. Either is fine by me. I don’t hear what they’re saying, but Caroline talks very animatedly just before the rest of the group bursts into laughter.

I turn my attention back ahead as I pass by Pierre’s and nearly bump into Marnie as she’s leaving the shop.

We both squeak out a little “Oh!” before apologizing in unison.

“I wasn’t really paying attention,” I double down.

“Oh, that’s fine. I rarely ever am!” She then motions to the two cups in my hands and adds, laughing, “At least the coffee’s safe!”

I awkwardly nod in agreement. Then, a brief flash of myself actually spilling coffee somewhere down the road raids my mind, my necklace tingling against my skin and my fingers practically buzzing.

Great.

“Everything alright, sweetie?”

That probably looked weird. “Yeah, sorry,” I try to recover, “just sleepy today!”

I take a sip of coffee to emphasize my point. Plus, I might as well drink what I can before these puppies go down. Hopefully I’ll be able to save at least one of them when the time comes.

“Aw, I’m sorry to hear that!” She puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “I need to get back to the shop, but take it easy and don’t overwork yourself, you hear?”

I nod, thanking her and waving her off with a shy grin before I continue moving. Once I get closer to the spot I’m supposed to be spilling these drinks — just before that little bridge over the river by JojaMart — I begin to walk more cautiously. If I can just keep these steady and focus on the ground…

A sneeze creeps up on me. Oh god. Oh god oh fuck oh no.

Just as I’m beginning to carefully place one of the cups on the side of the bridge for safe keeping, the sneeze forces its way out of me. Luckily, one beverage — the one I hadn’t drank from yet — stays safely in my hand. Unluckily, the one I was working on trying to keep safe fell to the stones at my feet, opening up and dispersing its contents fucking everywhere.

God damnit.

“Nice one.”

God fucking damnit.

I look up to the voice. It turns out Shane’s outside having a smoke. He’s at the opposite end of the bridge watching my clumsiness unfold with an aloof look about him. He’s bent over to lean on the stone wall, his right elbow propped up and his corresponding cheek in his palm. His left forearm is flat against the structure while his left hand lazily dangles his cigarette between two fingers.

Is that pink nail polish on one of them? I wonder if that’s Jas’ doing.

I merely groan back my response, picking up the now-empty cup to discard in the trash bin near the store. As I proceed on my walk of shame past Shane, I point out, “At least my clothes stayed safe.”

Shane follows and asks, “How many ants do you think you murdered with that accident?”

I grin a little at his dry humor. “Oh it was a massacre,” I bounce back. “The war in Gotoro pales in comparison.”

“Ha!” Oh my god, I made Shane — the grumpiest fuck I’ve ever met — laugh?! “Right on. Seems like pointless violence anyway.”

I turn to see if I can catch him smiling for the first time, like, ever. It’s not there anymore, but there’s a residual brightness in his features.

Shane snuffs out his cig on the ashtray built into the garbage’s lid, abandoning it there before shoving his hands in the pockets of his bright blue shorts.

“Those sons’a bitches,” he nods in the direction of my carnage, “they had it coming.”

My nose scrunches as I laugh a little, giving him a funny look. “Damn, what’d they do to you?”

There’s a playful glint in his eye, as he deadpans me. “Exist.”

I shrug and nod — I get it, they can be pretty annoying! — and follow the man as he makes his way through the white-rimmed, glass-centered automatic doors. I try not to cringe outwardly at how many self-righteous pro-Joja fliers are on them.

Shane stops a few steps into the store. Turns around. I stop too and look up, tilting my head. What’re you looking at, punk? I think to myself. Dunno if I’d be pushing my limits by trying to say it out loud. Better not.

Shane gives me a weird look too, but I can barely see it. My senses are taking their damn time getting used to the obnoxiously fluorescent lighting.

“Don’t you shop at Pierre’s?” Shane wonders out loud.

I blink a few times as I adjust to the environment and then nod. “Visiting Sam,” I explain.

“Ah.” He nods too, in understanding, and then looking the other way he continues, “Enjoy.”

Shane makes his way towards a door to the right of the manager’s office. Says “Employee’s only,” so I’m assuming it’s a break room or something. I don’t miss the incorrect apostrophe, but choose not to linger on it either.

“You too.” He looks back over his shoulder, so I pair my well wishes with a lazy salute.

“Buh.”

…Buh?

I smile. I think he’s warming up to me!

Feeling a tad lost now that I’m alone, I look around before making any advances. Should’ve asked Shane if he knew where Sam would be around now. I dunno how the shifts work around here.

The cashiers to my left — a visibly exhausted red headed woman, probably in her late 30s or early 40s; and a scrawny, scruffy looking teenager, with thick-framed glasses sitting atop his freckled nose — both look miserable.

The boy is boredly leaning against the counter, zoned out on the ground in front of it. The woman looks totally spaced out on nothing in particular. It almost seems like she’s fighting off sleep, too. Poor lady.

The woman and I lock onto each other. She looks away from my face before I can even register it, but I notice her eyes flicker longingly to the coffee cup in my hand a few times after the fact. I peer between her and the beverage twice before I all but scurry away into the aisles. I’m too awkward for this. My only option is to retreat. Never said I wasn’t a coward.

While I venture past the boatloads of boxed, bagged and canned foods in search of the resident dog boy, I observe some of the products. Some don’t look safe for consumption, while others seem like they’d be fun to try as a one-off sort of deal. It overlaps a few times as well. I mean, why wouldn’t I want to try this cereal which very explicitly states on the box that it’s more sugar than grains? It makes me stifle a giggle. I like the brutal honesty.

I stop and stare at it for a sec. Gnawing my lip. Wondering if I should just…

No. I shan’t.

I break away from temptation and trek on. As I reach the end of the aisle, I pan across the back of the store. More shelf-stable products, a small produce section… ah!

Sam looks like he’s supposed to be mopping the floor near the freezers. To be fair, he is holding a mop, and it is touching the floor! But instead of cleaning, he uses the tool as a microphone; singing against the end of the brown wooden handle, both hands passionately gripping it as he bends his torso to quietly belt one part in particular. Sam’s eyes are shut, his bulky black headphones are secured over his ears, and he has not a single worry in the world.

Holding his coffee in both hands now, I stop walking and lean against a nearby shelf. Observing. Waiting. Eventually he’ll have to see me.

He does a little spin move and carelessly bumps into the bucket of soapy water he’s working with, causing it to slosh around a little. Some of it lands on the floor, and some on the pants of Sam’s jumpsuit. Doesn’t faze him in the slightest.

He does another spin the opposite way and nearly knocks over the conveniently placed display of sprinkles that are situated right in front of the ice cream freezer.

I feel like I should probably stop him before something bad happens, but he looks so damn content and so stinkin’ cute that I can’t be assed.

Just as I’m thinking this, he opens his eyes, completely avoiding my direction while he immediately peers over his shoulder. Sam scans around, getting a full view of the proximate areas. It seems like he’s just making sure he’s not about to get caught by his boss or something, if I had to guess.

Eventually he lands on me. We both smile wide, and I triumphantly hold up his (unspilled!!) coffee in one hand, presenting it with a small flourish of the other and a bow of my head.

“For you, my good sir.” I make sure to sound extra fancy, dropping my voice an octave and annunciating my words a bit too much.

He looks around again before meeting me in the middle with a fist bump, completely ignoring my bit. Aw man.

“Hell yeah, thanks dude!”

I shoot some awkward finger guns at him, “You got it, bud.”

“You didn’t make yourself one?”

I sigh, lamenting, “I did…”

Sam scans my face as we share a short silence. Then, the lightbulb almost visibly goes off in his noggin. “You spilled it, didn’t you?”

Pursing my lips, I nod. “I spilled it, yeah.”

“Buuummer, dude.” He pats my head and I sigh, leaning into his touch. I’ll be damned if I don’t still love head-pats, even if it’s been a while since I’ve gotten one. “Wanna split this one then?” he offers, palm still on my crown. At this point he’s just trying to messy me up.

“No thanks, I’ll just grab another later if I’m really craving it.” Not having noticed the trance I’ve been in as my hair gets slowly and steadily ruined — it feels nice, okay? — I finally look up at him, cheekily glaring as I manually remove his large hand from me. I add on as I try to repair the frizzy aftermath, “Sick performance, by the way!”

“You think so?” he beams. Makes me laugh.

“Of course! It looked like you were having a lot of fun.”

Sam’s face is a bit flushed as he takes the compliment, not even trying to hide it; he has a big goofy grin on his face, too.

It drops and Sam looks behind him as a deep voice with a bit of a southern twang booms from one of the aisles nearby. “Samson?”

“Shit, here.”

Sam hurriedly places his coffee into my hand and rushes back near his water bucket, looking around for his manager as he moves. I try to make things less suspicious by pretending to look at some nearby end caps.

I take a peek over when I hear Sam greet the man, “Hiya! What’s up, Morris?”

Crossing his arms and puffing out his chest to try and make himself look mighty, a man in a navy blue suit, a bright red bow tie, and a poorly-applied black toupee corrects him. “That’s Mr. Saxton, son.”

I roll my eyes. Awesome to know the guy running this Joja is just as insufferable as the dudes who work on the corporate side.

Sam puts an anxious hand on the back of his neck, and halfheartedly smiles as he apologizes, his speaking patterns much more formal than before. Poor guy… it hurts to see him having to tone it down so much for this dipshit.

I turn my attention back in front of me so as to give him some privacy. Not sure he’d want me to hear him getting his ear talked off.

This display is full of holiday cards... I might as well waste some time with these bad boys. I pick up one with a cartoon beagle wearing a birthday hat on it, stealing a sip of Sam’s coffee as I read the pun on the front: “Have a doggone good birthday!” Alright, nice and cheesy start…

I flip the card open. It starts blaring Baha Men’s “Who Let The Dogs Out.” Fucking hell. Jumpscare me, why doncha! I shudder at how tinny the music sounds — likely made worse by its volume — then close the card and place it back in its spot, not bothering to read more.

“Excuse me, miss?”

I peer over my left shoulder, and see that Mr. Saxton is making his way towards me. A vein is popping in his forehead, but he has a toothy smile on his face that screams customer service. Not sure what’s going on and feeling a little anxious about the situation, I don’t answer with words — I just turn my body to him and watch him expectantly.

My eyes flicker to Sam real quick, who’s closer to the opposite end of the freezers now. He’s looking over here though, and when his eyes catch mine, he mouths “Go!” and motions his arm towards the front end of the store. Maybe he got caught socializing or something… wouldn’t doubt that there’s probably heavy surveillance in here. Man.

I look back at Sam’s boss as he says, “I’m going to need you to discard your beverage.”

My brows furrow and I tilt my head. “Why?”

Ah, he’s the asking-questions-is-talking-back type: He huffs a deep breath and tilts his head as if to mimic me, clasping his fingers together in front of his ribs. The smile and vein are both still on his face.

“It is not only unacceptable to bring your own food into a grocery store,” he strains, “but I cannot have you spilling your drink all over our products.”

…I haven’t spilled anything. What does he think I am, some crusty little kid?

Damn, this is bringing out a rage that I haven’t experienced since working behind a Joja desk. I didn’t know I was even capable of it anymore. Must be something about the overstimulatingly bright blues, or the blindingly white strips of lights. Same ones we had above each cubicle in the office.

My anxiety is rapidly replaced with a petty yearn to cause a ruckus as I realize that I don’t work for Joja anymore. I never have to even come here again, actually.

I don’t answer to this fucko! I don’t answer to anyone!

Screw this guy!

Feeling courageous, I put on my own customer service mask as I inquire, “Do you want me to spill this on your products?”

“E-excuse me?!”

I hover the cup near the cards, tilting it a little. Doing a little eyebrow wiggle too for good measure. “It feels like you dooo.”

“I— w-what are you doing?”

Seb would be so proud if he were here. Not sure how Magnus would react, but I’d like to imagine he’d support me too.

Completely on impulse, I bring the cup in front of me and splash a little coffee in the man’s direction instead of the cards’. The now-lukewarm liquid splatters onto the white button-down beneath his jacket and rapidly seeps into the fabric, leaving a light brown, unsightly splotch.

Sick, got him where it hurts and none got on the floor! Less work for Sam!

Making sure my voice is just as cheery as Morris was trying to keep his, I cap this off, “Stop treating your employees like crap and stop treating complete strangers like children, asshole.”

This feels so good. My heart is racing and my pits feel a little moist and I might just end up an anxious mess the second I walk away, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t cool as fuck in the moment. When Leah asked me last week if Magnus ever wanted to go apeshit, it didn’t even occur to me how badly I wanted to go apeshit.

I walk down the nearest aisle as Morris continues sputtering something about me leaving, paying for this, whatever.

Shane’s kneeled down in the middle of the aisle stocking shelves. He faces me for a moment and grins slyly. “That was cool as hell.” Why does this feel so validating? “A woman after my own heart.”

HUH?

I blink that fucking flashbang away — seriously, the last time I saw him he was still being a dick, and today he’s treating every interaction like we’re fully acquainted, if not more, what the heck — as he turns away to scan items onto the shelf again.

“I really didn’t do much…” I really didn’t. Just kinda caused a minor inconvenience for the guy.

My hands are shaking though, so it must be catching up to me.

“That still took some balls.” He glimpses at me briefly and adds, “Y’look like you might cry, though. Get outta here before I change my mind about you.”

I huff out a quiet laugh and steady Sam’s — well, my, now — coffee in both hands. “On it, boss.”

47 notes · View notes

sashi-ya · 1 year

Text

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 [+18] 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐟! 𝐩𝐫𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 [chapter one] ʚ masterlist

ʚ synopsis ɞ reader enjoys cosplaying, slowly but surely she became more and more noticed by the community. However, from exposure also comes dangers. Thankfully, a modern knight will be there to protect a modern princess. Will they protegonize a cute fairy tale? or will be a tale full of dragons to defeat?

ʚ tw ɞ MDNI. not the sweetest story (yet). SEXUAL ABUSE INTENT (she is fine and safe). usage of drugs. medical terminology and treatment. I wanted to have the opportunity to spread some awarness about certain topics; being in danger is -unfortunatelly- something common nowadays when you are a woman or part of any minority, therefore having information to avoid those dangers seems absolutely necessary. So you will find some bits and pieces of information inside the story. If you need any type of support regarding these topics, please contact with someone who can help you. I am here to help you as a nurse and a woman.

ʚ masterlist: part 2, part 3 part 4; part 5; final

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧

He wasn’t very fond of conventions. Since Sora the Warrior of the Sea had ended, he didn’t enjoy the crowded space of geeky events. But his friends, did.

“You owe me one” Law grunts, as he clenches his tattooed hands to the steering wheel. They are absolutely stuck in traffic, the line to get to the convention centre parking seems endless.

“Captain!! Don’t get mad at us!” Penguin, one of his best friends, chime. The rest of the “crew” echoes him, giggling and full of good vibes.

“Do not call me captain, Pen… I- we were kids!” Law grunts feeling his cheeks turn red; he cringes every time he is called “captain”. Yet, deep inside his heart, the word reminds him of whenever there were no worries, and they would pass their free days playing “pirates”.

Half an hour later, and having listened to Uta’s song thrice, they finally find a spot to park. Soon, as they do, Bepo jumps off Law’s yellow SUV urging Shachi to help him fix his cosplay.

Bepo, the man of pristine white spiky hair and everlasting blushed cheeks, has taken a liking into dressing up as his favourite characters from books and anime. And so, his friends, are there to support him no matter what.

As they walk towards the entrance of the biggest hotel they ever been to, they hear some commotion approaching them. Like a violent gust of wind, a bunch of photographers and fans pass, pushing them to the side, completely unaware of their presence.

“What the fuck?” Law grunts, annoyed. -even more. “SHE- LOOK…!” Penguin and Shachi gawk at the beautiful angel walking through the entrance of the conference room. “It’s Princess Uta!!”

Law rolls his eyes. He seems to be over with those new idols, and, not to mention those who also cosplay. He considers that they are a bunch of “kids”, immature and annoying. Truth is, that deep inside of him, things weren’t like this that much.

“Come on, I don’t care who she is we should get going. Bepo, you will be missing the cosplayers alley… didn’t you tell us you wanted to meet someone in particular?”

The white-haired boy, with the cute expression of a polar bear, widens his eyes. His friend is right, he wanted to meet some beautiful cosplayers there.

The four friends begin to walk inside, avoiding a bunch of screaming teenagers -and not so young ones-. It’s hard to breathe, the place is packed with people buying stuff, taking pictures, or simply hanging out.

“Tch… all these people…” Law grunts; the more people around, the more he feels overstimulated. He hates loud noises, and the crowd around isn’t helping. However, despite his annoyed countenance, some merch catches his attention here and there. Deep inside, Law is still a nerd.

Many people pass by, scanning his façade that hides beneath a white dotted cap. His icy eyes couldn’t care a less; no woman receives a reciprocated smile, nor even a look. Law is above all things; he is not interested in finding love in a place like this.

In between many heads and fake swords made of cardboard, the banner that announces the start of the “cosplay alley” stands out. Law, who has noticed it before than anybody else, sighs. “Bepo… there” he points out, with his E inked index.

Desperate squeaks from Penguin and Shachi accompanies the excitement Bepo shows. The first two, run towards the place. Yet Bepo, stays right by Law’s side. They walk calmly; or at least that’s just Law, because his snowy haired friend seems to be consumed by the flame of anxiety.

“It’s just some guys dressed in weird clothes, Bepo. You are as great as them” Law spits, as if he didn’t understand the meaning of social anxiety.

“I know, Captain… but- you know…” Bepo fidgets his furred gloved hands; the character that he is cosplaying is some kind of hybrid in between a human and a polar bear.

Law looks at him, and reassures him with a soft smirk that’s barely noticeable for the rest of the world… but for his brother? It’s enough to feel encouraged.

The tables where many girls and boys are sitting, are all packed with people taking pictures with them, buying prints of their cosplay photos and some -like Penguin and Shachi- are simping. Some of the women are wearing pretty revealing costumes; other, show amazing props like their proudest treasures.

And the one that Bepo went to meet, was calmly taking some pictures with a red-haired little girl. She was dressed as a princess, or perhaps it was a warrior… no, she must be an angel…

“Captain, there she is! I wanted to take a picture with her since forever!” Bepo fans over the kind looking woman, smiling so sweetly to not so many people around like the rest of the cosplayers.

Law stands right there, getting pushed by many people as they pass and want to take pictures. He is just blinking slowly; never, in a million of years he has lost contact with reality just by looking at a woman… but it was happening, and soon the approaching rest of the “crew” noticed…

…

“Hi! A photo? Of course!” you chimed, happy to be reached by young kids willing to follow your steps in the cosplay career.

As you fleet goodbye the last kid, you notice some young men staring at you. One of them, particularly handsome, covered in tattoos, has a soft pinkish blush taking over his cheeks and seems to be frozen in time with no signs of even blinking whatsoever.

You think if he is ok. But soon you roll your eyes; surely he is watching at any other cosplayer looking bomb as all of them… he is probably another pervert.

Yet, you couldn’t be more wrong.

The white-haired guy by his side gets pushed to your booth by the other friends. He is wearing a cosplay that coincidentally share anime with yours. You smile, he is just timid.

“Hi… (Name). I’m- I am a fan of your work!” he shily says, when reaches your table. You smile, sweetly. This guy has never done anything wrong in his entire life.

You bow your head in gratefulness, standing up to get ready for yet another photo. “Thank you so much! What’s your name?” you ask, chiming and inspecting the amazing details of his costume. It seems made entirely by hand, and it couldn’t be more pretty.

“I’m Bepo!” he kinda screams, taking his hand to his forehead as if he was some kind of military or marine.

It makes you giggle, but soon the moment gets interrupted when the other two of them pull the frozen handsome guy with them to meet you.

“Hi! He is Penguin. And he is Law. Forgive him, I don’t know exactly what happened to his brain, but he wants to take a picture with you” a red-haired man with a funny looking hat says, pointing at the tattooed one.

That might have been the needed slap to wake him up. “NO!” he awkwardly screams, making you laugh.

He takes a look at you from the side, with sharp eyes that are pretty scary to look at. And it is enough to make you stop giggling. “I’m sorry ~” you whisper, looking down almost immediately.

“Captain!” the one that was introduced as Penguin scolds them, and the smile returns to your face. Why are they calling him captain?

“I’m sorry… I- I didn’t mean to scream at you” he stutters, looking now with that same hateful stare at his friend who takes two steps back.

You bite the insides of your mouth. He is way more handsome when he speaks, a raspier voice, low and sensual, that makes you kinda weak.

“Don’t worry. I get I look a little bit intimidating with this costume on!” you joke, taking a huge replica of a sword from the table and showing it to him. It’s almost as tall as he is, with a furry tsuba and golden details on its tsuka.

The man covered in tattoos look at the sword, and then at your eyes. You spend what feels like eternal seconds getting lost in them. He is something special.

Handing him the prop, your fingers delicately graze, and you discover how soft are his. He either never worked in his life or is some kind of surgeon.

He inspects the sword, amazed at the details. Bepo, while he does so, finally takes the picture he wanted to with you. And soon, the encounter has to inevitably come to an end.

All of them wave goodbye to you, but, you aren’t willing to let the man of frozen eyes go without learning his name.

“Bepo! If you post the picture we took together, please, tag me! I will love to follow your Instagram account” you chime, waving back at them. “You are an amazing cosplayer, we should team up someday!”

The white-haired boy has almost a stroke from your words; and you can only hope for his friend to also have an account…

You sit back for some minutes while more people come to your booth, and while you curl a lock of your wig you can stop thinking about him. “What a handsome guy…” you giggle, noticing your cheeks get hot as hell itself.

Sometimes, throughout the day, you take a look around. You wish you could see him again, but unfortunately you can’t get a glimpse of him.

Your thoughts, however, right an hour before the day of the con is over, get interrupted by a guy asking you something.

“Excuse me, I’m a photographer. You can see my portfolio if you scan my QR code. I would like to offer you a photoshoot for free” he kindly says, looking like the respectful man you’ve ever met. Besides, he has something attached to his cheek, something like a sweet? Did he seriously not noticed?

You aren’t fully trustful of him; you know some men, specially in your ambience aren’t exactly the best so you proceed with care.

“I… I really appreciate the offering. I would love to collab with you, but you see it’s been a long day” you try to decline, respectfully. It’s true that you are a little bit tired, but it was the fact that you had went alone to the event this time. Nobody could keep you company during the first day of the convention.

The man insists; he shows the pictures of his work, and they look awesome. “We wont go any further, I think right there will be enough for the pics to look amazing!” he chimes. You think twice, but since he didn’t request for you to go outside or far away you finally accept.

As you start packing up your staff, the photographer offers himself to help you. You are really happy someone is giving you a hand, and you kind of feel guilty for mistrusting him before.

When you crunch to pick up your bag you notice a little charm on the floor; a polar bear plushie lays almost forgotten under the table’s booth. “Oh… someone might have lost it! I will keep it and see if anyone comes back and asks for it” you think, clasping it to your bag.

And soon when you are set to fleet, off both of you go.

Walking through the now almost empty halls, you get some chills running through your spine. Is not the first time you see the con’s alley deserted, but you usually end your day now and go back to your hotel. You shake the feeling and get distracted with the man by your side offering you a something.

“(Name), bet you haven’t got anything to drink in many hours. Please, drink some water. You gotta stay hydrated” he says, with a smile that’s difficult to read. The bottle is closed, so you thankfully accept it.

Once you have finally reached the now solitaire photo set, specially adapted for the convention, you take a big gulp of water. It feels refreshing; you honestly needed it. You were taught to never accept anything edible nor drinkable from the people that come to see you at events, but since it the bottle was clearly new, you didn’t give much importance to the dangers.

When the camera is set, the man calls you to stand and pose in front of him. At first, things went smoothly. But then, everything changed…

“You should lower the cleavage a little” he suggested.

“I…” you stutter, fixing the collar of your dress. Perhaps it was too high and it wasn’t looking good.

“More, honey! You should show a little bit more skin. That will attract more followers!” he insists, pointing the camera towards your chest.

“No. I don’t feel comfortable!” you straightforwardly deny. You want to stop, but you begin to feel your ears buzzing, and the flashing lights of the camera become almost unbearable to look at. You try to look at your sides for help, discovering there is nobody around and the guy coming closer and closer.

The bastard laughs, grabbing your arms and whispering things you can barely understand. “Don’t get all worked up, honey… you shouldn’t drink stuff people give you… now, cooperate with me…”

You try to let go of him, scared of what he could do to you, unable to scream or even kick him away. Yet, there is always a glimpse of hope in everything...

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ㅤ“Get the fuck away from her!”

continues in ➡ chapter 2

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