#totes magotes okay to reblog

[monsterbrush]

Just turned 21. 

Alcohol tastes bad. 

That is all, goodnight. 

[monsterbrush]

takineko reblogged your photo: Mad Max: Fury Road Fantasy AU part 3 Did anybody...

My question about this AU– are these the kinds of dragons who can shapeshift? Because that would be interesting for Nux x Capable.

My stance on the matter is this: if the dragon is old enough, clever enough, or powerful enough, they can use magic to transform themselves into humans if they want to, though doing so makes them vulnerable. 

The dragons that I currently consider being able to do this are Immortan Joe (who does it often), Miss Giddy (because it’s easier to read books with human hands), and the Ace (who doesn’t do it at all, not even Furiosa knows he can), and there’s always the possibility that “human” characters might not be human at all, or that they might have magic of their own unrelated to dragons. 

Nux, Slit, and Morsov are all very young dragons. They’ve been collared, branded, and used as laboring beasts for most of their lives, they don’t even have hoards - Morsov’s hoard of “interesting rocks” doesn’t really count because it’s a small pile of rocks tucked away in a corner, Nux’s fondness of shiny reflective things doesn’t matter because they aren’t allowed to hoard anything anyway, and Slit only wants to hoard things that other people want. It would take a lot of work for Nux to learn to shapeshift, he’d need guidance, a lot of practice, and a lot of patience, but I am welcome to the idea that he might one day be successful. 

[monsterbrush]

SO. I've been reading your asks, definitely giggling the whole time but I have a question about the nasty lizard. You covered pets, friendship/romance, and even his sexual preferences BUT... What if something killed his favorite f*** buddy? What would he do? How do you think he'd react? I don't mean a lover dying historic or losing a battle with fever, I mean bloody MURDER. What are Slit's stages of grief?

OHOHOHO I think we all know where this is gonna go. 

Warning for extremely unhealthy coping mechanisms, suicide, self harm, and depression, Slit is not gonna handle this well.

Disclaimer: I’m basing this on a Slit without significant character development. It is my personal interpretation of the character and can be subject to change.

Since the line between fuck-buddy and friend is kinda thin for Slit, his reactions to the aforementioned scenario are gonna be pretty damn similar between the two, and it is also important to note that it will not matter to Slit whether his partner deserved what they got or not, or that Slit might have done the same were the circumstances reversed, all that matters to Slit is his partner has been killed. What’s more is his partner has been abruptly taken from him and he. Is. Pissed. 

Slit doesn’t go into shock very often, and when he does, it is quickly followed by blistering anger. Anger is his automatic response to most things, it is his default, it’s how he protects himself from feeling soft, or sad, or scared, so his mind jumps to anger in situations like this. It’s just easier for him this way. So his shock doesn’t last long, he dives headfirst into his anger, channels it, fuels himself on it, and attacks. This line of action has two outcomes, so let’s explore them both shall we?

Option one: Slit gets his revenge. In his rage he will brutally slaughter the focus of his anger. Depending on his current level of coherence he will either kill them fast or choose to make them suffer first. Morals mean very little to Slit. He is mad, and they are to blame, so whatever he does to them is justified. It’s one of the things that make him such an effective War Boy—maybe not when directed towards his fellow Boys, but towards enemies it makes him very nice to have on your side unless you’re big on the whole “No unnecessary killing” thing, because Slit’s definitely gonna throw a wrench in that.

Naturally, once his enemy is dead Slit’s at bit of a loss. His partner is gone, and now so is the person that killed them. He might take his lingering frustration out on his surroundings, kick the corpse around a little bit longer etc. He’ll wear himself out until he can barely stand. War Boys aren’t taught to grieve for their fallen brothers, so with his anger out of the way Slit just… shuts down. He wanders around on cruise control. Doesn’t really do much here or there. His partner is gone, there’s a massive hole where they’re meant to be, so Slit does what any War Boy would do and gets the hell away from that. He changes bunks. He stops visiting the places where he and his partner used to hang out at. Avoids anything to do with them. He keeps their memory close sure, maybe carves a little doodle or two into his stomach to commemorate them, to take his mind off of it all—it’s his own twisted way of coping, being soft without being soft. 

If left to his own devices he’ll be quick to find his way to Valhalla, not out of glory but more out of a lack of seeing something else to live for. He can’t move on from this on his own. Slit’s not good at making new friends, he knows that, and he knows how unlikely it is for him to find someone else to fill the space his partner left, and he might not even want someone else, he wants his partner. So naturally Valhalla is his best bet, it’s impressed upon War Boys enough that dying in glory is what they might consider the only natural response to something like this. His partner is usually the one to help him out with his emotions and things so without them there’s not much he can do by himself in this regard, emotional support is vital and he does not have a lot of it. So he chases Valhalla in a blazing ball of fire and that’s it. That’s the end. 

Option two: Something stops him. Slit gets restrained, held back, or otherwise kept from achieving his desired revenge or dying in the attempt because you know damn well it wasn’t a sudden emergence of empathy that stayed his hand, and now Slit is left to fester. He is unsatisfied, stewing in his rage. It simmers and burns, churning his guts. He lashes out at everyone with the slightest provocation. Anything becomes worthy of a punch in the teeth to Slit. Any tiny little infraction. Without expressing his rage towards the one who killed his partner he inflicts it on everyone else instead, and when that isn’t enough he takes his frustration out on his environment, throwing things, hitting things, breaking things. Instead of avoiding the memory of his partner he soaks himself in it, he clings to the idea of vengeance and doesn’t let go. Never forgive, never forget. Under the right circumstances even Immortan Joe himself could become the target of his rage, if an adequate reason isn’t given for Slit to more easily accept his partner’s death. Gods and kings mean nothing to someone like Slit, it’s all about who’s on top, Slit knows that better than he knows God. As someone whose morals are so loose and subjective, his religious views are much the same. They are a means to an end for Slit. If something isn’t working, he either changes it to suit his needs or abandons it entirely. He’ll burn for himself before he burns for a God, his devotion ends where his God ceases to benefit him.

It is more than likely that this scenario ends with Slit destroying himself in some violent explosive death fueled by the rage he’s marinated himself in like a box of fireworks soaked in gasoline that’s been lit by a match, but on the off chance he does eventually achieve the revenge he so desperately sought after he is actually much better off for it (a relative term, nothing about how he is handling this is okay). Delayed gratification is one hell of a drug. Slit feels satisfied, he can move on with his half-life now, he can rest easy knowing the person who took his partner from him finally got what Slit felt in his soul they deserved. Now Slit can move on. He still probably ends up going to Valhalla, but that’s what War Boys are taught to do. 

Regardless of how things come to pass, Slit becomes self-destructive either way. His coping mechanisms are not healthy in the slightest. He doesn’t handle grief well. Or helplessness, or loss, or fear, etc. 

One might say he takes after Max Rockatansky when it comes to the loss of a loved one (haha that was a terrible joke, I’m so sorry Max). 

Ideally he needs intensive emotional support, a firm hand, someone to walk him through what he is feeling and support him through it, and an outlet for his emotions. Even then, the road to recovery is bumpy as all hell, as anyone who has experienced loss of that magnitude can tell you, and Slit will struggle and hurt practically every step of the way, but if he has even one of those things his chances of coming to terms with his partner’s death and moving on are better than if he is left to his own devices.  

[monsterbrush]

Okay, I just found your blog and your Slit drawings and headcanons are great. I love that Nasty Lizard Man to pieces and he's just great in your art style. Also I love that the Nasty Lizard actually HAS a lizard in your art. I feel like Slit it 100% the type of person who loves animals more than people, or well, anything else. Thank you so so much for your stellar art! You made my day!

Aw thanks, I’m glad you enjoy my headcanon thought-gush in regards to the Nasty Lizard King! 

Lizards just get him, ya know? They only care about the simple things. Eat, fight, fuck. Slit probably respects the little bastards for that. They don’t care about morals. Fuck ethics, lizards want to eat. They want to fuck. They want to survive long enough to eat and fuck as much as possible. He might be a little bit wistful. “This would be easier if I were a lizard,” sorta thing, ya know? Lizards probably don’t have to deal with shit like guilt, shame, or the constant fear of their imminent demise. They don’t care if one of them gets killed, cuz lizards don’t have best mates to worry about getting sick and dyin’ soft, they just gotta worry about themselves.

Speaking of headcanons, here’s a lil headcanon or two about Slit that I’ve been sitting on for a while:

I like to think that before Slit was Slit, when he was a pup, he used to have a pet lizard that he kept in some special little nook, and he’d feed the lizard bugs, let it crawl around on his arms, bring it outside to sun itself, etc. Happy things. He might have even named it. But lizards are food in the wasteland, so at one point or another Slit’s lil lizard got snatched up or stepped on and eaten. Or, if I wanna be extra mean, maybe a particularly cruel War Boy noticed Slit’s affection for his pet and decided to teach him a lesson about being soft. Regardless, Slit didn’t keep another lizard for a long time after that, and if he did, he was extra careful to keep it out of sight.

But maybe he tries his hand at breeding them, after he becomes a War Boy. It’s just a hobby, and the more there are the less it hurts if one of them gets killed. So what if he has a couple favorites who get the better bugs? Everybody still gets fed, and if one of them is a lil small or a lil skinny? Well, nobody will bat an eye if he slips that one an extra beetle or two, to give the bastard a fighting chance. Slit does pushups with his lizards when one of the males tries to court the ladies. He thinks it’s hilarious whenever his favorite female lashes out at unwanted suitors, only the best get the privilege of breeding with her. He puts the males she deems “mediocre” in a separate enclosure so she doesn’t injure them, and he’s always filled with pride when she lays a clutch of healthy eggs. He might trade a few of his lizards to other War Boys for food or whatnot in exchange for tools and such, but he guards his favorites fiercely. Slit is the Lizard King, and he won’t let anything happen to his subjects now that he can do something about it.

[monsterbrush]

Hey there, it's the same anon who asked about Slit's love for lizards! Your headcanons were so so cool, I'd love to see more from you! I love the description of how Slit supports his male lizard buddies when they're attempting to present for a female lizard and eventually mate. This mental image made me think, though: if Slit were trying to impress someone, how would he act/what would he do? Once again, your headcanons kicked butt! Thanks so much! :D

I am thrilled you enjoy my ramblings of the crazed Lizard King! So thrilled in fact that I will take this as another opportunity to spew my headcanon thought-gush all over the place!

How does Slit impress someone??? Why, he does pushups of course! Well, maybe not pushups exactly, but regardless of his intentions, whether he’s trying to impress, flirt, or intimidate, it usually involves some display of Slit’s physical prowess. War Boys are all about physical strength and domination, to the point of toxicity, and Slit is no exception, in fact he may very well be the epitome, or something close to it. Nothing Slit does is ever without a little aggression. He is an ever-changing ratio of temptation and aggravation, and it fluctuates with his mood as much as with his environment.

This got a little long. Under the cut is a bunch (like, seriously a lot) of paragraphs of my attempts to study the bizarre social habits of the Lizard King in his natural habitat:

So Slit wants to impress somebody? Maybe that one Imperator whose crew gets all the good privileges? He’ll showcase his skills like an anole showcasing his bright red dewlap, wooing the Imperator and warding off the other War Boys with the best of his abilities to prove his worth. Like a big flashing advertisement from Before, Slit conveys his message through interpretive dance body language “Look at this! You want this! You need this! My skills are useful, LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!”, while at the same time the back of the billboard of Slit is like “Challenge at your own risk. You know you don’t want to mess with this. Messing with this will mess you up. It will make me look better. I want you to mess with me, so I can make you look worse. Do it you fucker! Make my day! FITE ME!”

Now say some other War Boy is stepping on Slit’s turf, sittin on his rock, climbing on his (lancer’s) perch? A challenger approaches! I’m sure we all remember what went down between Slit and Nux when Slit tried to step on Nux’s turf by taking his wheel. All that head bumping and growling? That was pure Slit. That was Slit’s threat display. Now, granted it didn’t work on Nux, and Slit stopped there for REASONS, but I like to imagine Slit does this to other War Boys as well, and if they hold their ground unflinchingly like Nux (which I doubt they would cuz Nux saw it coming and they probably don’t and that shit’s scary he is big and fighty), then Slit would probably escalate the situation into a full blown brawl right there and right then. At that point the victor is whoever comes out on top. Slit is big, strong, healthy, and mean, so he’s got a lot of good things going for him, but fights can be very unpredictable. These fights probably fuel someone’s gambling addiction.

Alright, so now Slit’s tryin’ ta woo somebody? Well, what kind of somebody? Doesn’t really matter to Slit right then. Unless he’s got some seriously significant motivation he’d most likely approach this sort of thing the same way he does with everything else. Hissing, growling, intense eye contact, and lots of flexing. He probably puts a lil something extra in the hips when he moves, sways a lil more, struts a lil more, banking off of what he’s best at like he would when he tries to impress an Imperator. He is an efficient, powerful machine. His billboard is now promoting a sports car to an insecure middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis with money to spare. “You would love to get with this. Getting with this will make you look good. It will be great. You will be great, because I am great.” He might even move a little slower than he normally would, to give the object of his “affections” the chance to admire his physique, linger a little bit, like a flashy slo-mo reel of that sleek sexy sports car driving through rain in the middle of nowhere—mmm car metaphors…

All that being said, there’s probably a lot of mixed signals, misunderstandings, miscommunications… Slit’s display is equal parts a show and a warning. He’s coming for someone, he is going to get very, very physical, and they don’t always know why. A lot can go wrong. “Is he tryin’ to start somethin’? He’s tryin’ to start somethin’ isn’t he?” Slit is always DTF, be it fuck or fight. It is either one or the other, the odds are 50/50 and they’ve just used their last Before coin as shrapnel for a thunderstick. Someone might end up getting punched—probably Slit, but I cannot imagine a lil tap in the jaw would be enough to turn him off, given that he is a Nasty Lizard who just won’t quit. His off switch is dysfunctional. It is equally possible that a tap in the jaw would turn him on more. Communication is probably severely lacking among War Boys. It will take several more “taps” for Slit to get the message and back off, but I’m sure the recipient of Slit’s wooing will have probably caught on to his intentions by then and decided whether they want the wooing or not. If it is someone familiar with Slit, they will most likely catch on much sooner and (hopefully) have a technique to deter him. Nasty Lizard.

Now, clearly Slit’s sexy lil billboard is aimed at War Boys in the above scenario. They like cars, that’s why I used a car metaphor, I am a literary genius I know, bask in my glory yes har har har, I am secretly a fool. But, back to the topic at hand. This advertisement strategy won’t work on other target audiences like, shall we say, a woman recently freed from an oppressive sexually abusive tyrant, single and not all that ready to mingle, who is probably very not okay with large lizards climbing on top of them and hissing, take that for what you will. 

Now, depending on if all things go as right as they possibly can in this scenario, Slit is committed to a long haul wooing and subsequent relationship with aforementioned lady, Slit must change his marketing strategy to appeal to this new audience. The benefits of this are similar to impressing an Imperator, extra privileges go to the ones on their crew but these privileges are extra, extra good, so it’s kinda like Imperators with Benefits which I’m sure Slit would be All For, and it’s probably worth rolling over for someone softer than he is.

Unfortunately this is very not easy for Slit who likes being big and bad and scary and mean. But the power of love lust must prevail! Slit cannot resist showcasing his “assets”, again he must bank on his physicality, but he must do a different sort of display, appeal to what this new target audience wants. 

He is very strong and healthy. Why does she not like that? That can’t be right. Maybe he is too scary? (a very conflicting sentiment for Slit). But what if he was only scary to other people and not her? She doesn’t like it when War Boys approach her, so maybe he should stop them from approaching her because he is so scary! Yes! Genius! Such a smart lizard! Look at that impressive dewlap! The sleek sports car becomes a dependable minivan with plenty of trunk space, seats, and a heavily armored, reinforced chassis with spikes to ward of potential threats! 

“Look at this!” the billboard of Slit proclaims! “Getting with this will stop anyone else from getting with you! Still not good enough? Well, getting with this will also stop other people from getting with your friends too! Now comes with a bonus feature of messing people up so you don’t have to, and I’ll throw in this complimentary knife so you can gut me if you are displeased with the product and want a refund!” If that doesn’t work, Slit is doomed to extensive, tedious, invasive, possibly painful character development, which I know we all love.

Disclaimer: these headcanons do not apply to everything. Alternate headcanons that emphasize different aspects of the Lizard King are equally valid and some will not support these musings. Things like these and differing character development can easily change the headcanons I have made, and I am totes magotes okay with that and Down To Explore alternate variations of Slit, and I used ‘totes magotes’ completely unironically because that is how passionate I am about this.