Mihawk-Brain-Eating-Syndrome has seized me with such a gorilla grip I am losing my fucking mind so I guess we're doing this.
The post that started this whole train of thought came from @manofbeskar who's Mihawk thoughts, Mishanks heartwrenchers, and absolutely gorgeous art are so inspiring I feel chewing-on-the-doorframe feral every time I check their blog.
So.. thoughts of the day that Im just tossing into the void to get it out of me because otherwise it will fester inside me and make me ill:
Mihawk has a complicated relationship with vivre cards. Despite his best efforts to keep the world and everyone in it at arm and Yoru length he does manage to keep collecting bits of them though.
Not many nowadays of course, its a rather intimate affair after all; to have someone give you a literal piece of their life so that you may always find them no matter where in the wide seas you may be and that you'll be the first to know should they leave that world entirely. Far too intimate. It feels too obvious, too heavy handed, too much like handing him your heart and asking him to carry it. Such a thing is heavier than any blade and all the bloody deeds he can never truly wipe from the steel.
Its gentle and vulnerable and human, all the things hes convinced he can play at but never truly be again.
But I imagine at the start of his journey he was a touch more open, perhaps accepting his first from a mentor as a parting of ways. Though he didn't yet have one of his own to offer in return. Strange how a simple piece of card in his palm could feel like an open door. Always there, inviting him home. Always there, until it wasn't.
He will never forget the first time he felt one burning away into nothing in his hands. It went up so quick.. he had no idea it could take less than a minute to burn a home.
Then perhaps he found a crew, a more tangible place to nest and he suddenly had more vivre cards than he could tuck away on his person in a timely manner. Perhaps it became a ritual of sorts each morning, a part of his routine to tuck each one away. The captain, vice captain, and the rest of the specialists lining the inner band of his hat while the rest of the crew were individually squirreled away. A meditation, grounding and quiet. He would use it to remind himself of his role as the crew's swordsman, as their protector.
How could he forget the sharp sear of each individual card burning away, stuck close to his skin by waterlogged clothing as he dragged himself ashore gasping and choking on sea and blood and smoke. Having been left by marines that assumed he would drown because- perhaps pointed out by one that had deceived him, made Mihawk believe they were his friend to be led back to his family:
"No freak like that could exist without having eaten the devil's fruit."
How could he forget the embers escaping, dancing in the evening gloam like fireflies swarming around him? There were so many.. now there are none and gods he's been so empty since. How could such a small piece of paper take so much of him? To kill a man with a blade, even butchering him inelegantly, would be a greater mercy so long as he was dead.
Nowadays Mihawk knows better. Knows better than to trust or be trusted. That blades might chip and tarnish but they dont burn, never completely.
Yoru hums and sings in his hands as he wields her and she does not feel like home.. but she feels solid and eternal and cold. She will never burn. Her weight is bearable.
Impersonal.
Professional.
Yoru makes death an art in his hands. She is the brush not the paper, spattering fireflies over a night sky.
. . .
For years after, he kept far from others. Deciding to never get so close to anyone ever again. Safe in the knowledge he would never feel the burning sting of loss nor the cold cut of betrayal so acutely. Trust was a double edged blade, perhaps the only one he truly couldn't handle.
He was no protector.. so he wouldn't try to be.
Instead Mihawk would hunt. Chasing the marines mercilessly. Cutting a bloody path through their ranks and burning their fucking fortresses to the ground. At first they spoke of him as an insane lone swordsman, then a one man army, then a monster, a demon. The relentless yellow eyed freak that stalked the seas and nightmares of future vice admirals.
He systematically killed all those that harmed him. A shadow over the shore, a rogue wave swallowing their ships, a curse of vengeance come to reap. He destroyed all the records of his crew that he could get his hands on. If he must be cursed to slowly forget them over time, then the world government didnt deserve their memory either.
And so on it went for a time. Long enough for the hunt to lose its luster. Slaughtering sheep by the herd in search of a rare wolf.
Mihawk had almost forcibly forgotten about Vivre cards as a concept. His own remained untouched, never moving from where he hid it. He had no friends, no family, no nakama. Only a dwindling list of worthy foes to test himself against.
Until the day the king of pirates died. Until their golden age truly began.
Until he met Shanks, who held out a hand and asked him to step out of the monochrome past and into a thousand possible vibrant futures. Ones of lush reds and glittering golds, of polished onyx black and the purest, deepest blue.
.
"Here," Shanks said suddenly one night, holding out a small scrap of paper. The both of them were perched atop the ruins of a high sea wall on some remote island, enjoying the cold breeze from the north after a hard fought duel.
Mihawk, for all his composure, blanched. "What is that?" He knew and he did not take it.
"What do you think it is? Its a piece of my card." He said it so simply. Like it barely occured to him how precious such a thing was. Shanks didn't drop his arm, even as the silence stretched out between them.
"No."
"Come on, Takanome- Dont be like that! We're nak--"
"Rivals." He cut the younger man off abruptly. His chest felt too hot and too tight, burning and burning and, "We are rivals, Akagami."
Shanks must've been pouting, he could hear it in his voice, "Even more reason for you to take it. We could duel every day if you could always find me~ Come on.. Please? I want you to have it."
"...."
Hawkeyes glanced at his best friend rival and immediately regretted it. Shank's face was always full of so much hope, so much faith in... something.. It made Mihawk's heart catch in his throat every time to see those big earnest eyes staring at him almost as if, for a moment, it was faith in him.
"I don't know if I can give you mine.." He murmured. Shanks smiled soft, a little sad, and infuriatingly understanding without needing to know anything.
"I dont need it. I know you'll always find me." He pressed his heart, his home the scrap into Mihawk's palm and closed the swordsman's fingers over it. "And if I need to find you.. I'll just ask the wind."
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man the thing about beauty standards and being ugly and being pretty and being insecure is that ultimately you do just kinda have to Decide that youre pretty. like ultimately thats how you become pretty, or hot, or sexy. you have to just Decide that you Are. you have to recognize that its made up, its arbitrary, its subjective, and that people might disagree with you about it, and as much as you are able, you need to completely and utterly disregard their opinions on your appearance, and decide that youre pretty now. and THEN.
you need to find beauty in "ugly". you need to recognize that ugly is made up, that its arbitrary, that its subjective, and you need to be able to find the beauty in it all. and this means you cant bodyshame people. you cant body shame shitty celebs or politicians. you need to base your criticisms on the substance of their character and misdeeds and unhinged horrific opinions and not give a shit about what they look like. you cant go calling people ugly for being shitty. you cant go calling people ugly for looking A Way You Dont Like.
and then if you wanna really galaxy brain this shit you start using ugly as endearment. OBVIOUSLY do not fucking call other human beings ugly. that shit is far too loaded, its just Rude. Dont call specific features of people or even characters ugly cos thats also too loaded. as a term it has baggage. but you can see the ugly in tacky, loud, garish clothing, and it can be Good. you can see the ugly in a distinctive, horrible tiny car from the 90s, and it can be good. you can see the ugly in animals that have evolved to look the way they do, without a single thought of what humans find appealing. you can see the beauty and the freedom in "Ugliness". you can break out of this shit altogether and feel nothing but disdain for anyone who stoops to insulting your appearance if they disagree with you about shit. you can get completely out of the cave of these beauty standards. you can find it so freeing to revel.in letting yourself be ugly. in recognizing that the way you look and exist might be ugly to some people, and youre out of the cave enough to simply recognize. thats just your opinion and it doesnt matter. didnt ask.
you can look at ppl arguing about the correct amount of skincare products to use daily, the Correct Amount of makeup, and whether or not its radical to conform to beauty standards or defy them and argue about is it really conforming if visible makeup pisses men off, and you can say, well I dont care about any of that, I recognize the societal pressures of flawless skin and all that but you see,
I just want to look like a silly little clown :o3
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List 5 facts about a favorite sim of yours, and send this to simblrs whose sims you adore 😁
i'm sorry this took me so long to answer ive been trying to think of some elvene facts i havent shared (unsuccessfully but)😭anyway here are some elvene facts which i may or may not have shared before
when i first made elvene she actually had purple eyes (you can see her evolution here) and mostly wore the colour purple whereas now she mostly wears the colour green! she also wasn't a forest elf when i first made her either (i hadnt really thought about what type of elf she was at this point)
another thing about her character when i first made her she was actually called "elvene the sharpshooter" however i decided it was too long, making her last name "sharp" instead
she's a ranger, and her subclass is gloom stalker! (she loves to use shrouded in shadow to avoid people, which is most of the time honestly)
the reason her bow is so special to her is because it was actually gifted to her by a family after she helped protect their village. they were pretty poor and didnt have much to offer her money wise, but to her the bow is priceless as it serves as a reminder of the reason why she became an adventure. she didnt become an adventure for the money, but to help and protect people who need her and knowing she did that is more than enough for her! (she also never lets her bow and arrow leave her side)
she is very knowledgeable about plants and knows how to make a basic healing potion
(bonus fact bc why not) shes panromantic and asexual and her type is goth girls😁
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