#his hysteria amped up to 100 and screaming at every turn

[fallingyams]

A little thing I wrote a while back when I was revisiting KHR... basically my very self-indulgent thoughts on a BAMF!Skull who decides the best strategy to survive the underworld is by letting everyone else underestimate him.

I've never really been fond of the way he's treated by others in canon, and it completely baffles me why they'd choose to characterise him like this if he's supposed to be one of the strongest seven.

There are ways of making supposedly OP characters weaker - inner fears, disagreements, conflicting loyalties, a person who is their achilles heel, a lack of motivation - you DON'T need to make someone into a bullied lackey.

----

As far as navigating the wild seas of the mafia goes, Skull believes that being underestimated is the best strategy.

Skull is a method actor.

And that means embodying clumsiness and hysteria.

He makes mistakes. He plays up his confusion. Joins the weakest family that he could find (With some sense of ethics that he could stomach, obviously. He'd be speeding down the highway in the opposite direction if he so much as caught a whiff of the Estraneo. Ugh, hurting children.)  He botches his jobs. He falls and screams and cries and shrieks. He lets himself get hit and made fun of.

He picks himself up and dusts himself off at the end of every day.

It's a fine balance, this game of being just competent enough to affirm his status as the Cloud Arcobaleno, and yet leaving others completely baffled at his continued survival.

It's a risky game to play, stringing some of the world's most powerful along and playing them for fools.

He is Skull, the world's greatest stuntman. Taking big risks is just another day to him.

You see, those who are born and raised in the mafia have a complacency to them. They look at civilians and think weak.

They look at Skull and see nothing but civilian. Weak. Coward.

These mafia men forget that stuntmen like Skull actively run into death with their eyes wide open. 

They forget that being born a civilian means that they have actively chosen this life of danger. They have seen it all and decided to stay.

So Skull lets the other Arcobaleno have their fun at his expense. He takes on the role of useless lackey and screams into all their ears at the first sign of danger. Makes them forget that he's the first one to spot any danger at all. Lets them gloss over the fact that appearances aside, he was also chosen to stand beside them as one of the strongest, in spite of his civilian background.

It feels like a huge prank he's playing on them, one that may never see an end and it tickles Skull deep inside that these mafioso who pride themselves in their strength and intelligence and spy networks have never quite figured out that Skull is simply performing a role in front of them.

He's content to let life continue on this way. He has no qualms allowing their arrogance to one day cause their demise. After all, the fall of many great men has been caused by their very own hubris.

That is, until, he catches wind of something very interesting.

Reborn has been assigned to tutor the up and coming candidate for Vongola 10th.

A civilian candidate.

And Skull has never quite been interested in involving himself in mafia affairs, but just perhaps…

He could impart some teachings to help a kindred soul navigate this world.

And really honestly, it seems like it'd be fun to fuck around with Reborn. Just a little.

-fin-

Like I REALLY don't get canon. He's a STUNTMAN. Danger is pretty much his job??? He actively chooses to jump through rings of fire and taunt death and the mafia decides he's weak?????