Tw public sex mention, Kylar the loner, slight mention of breath play? Idk he wants to drown you a little, possessive
Kylars the type of freak to rub a hard on up against your ass in public even though you made him cum before leaving for the house. His ass is insatiable. Clinging to your waist with his arms as you talk to someone else, his green eyes glaring at them as he grinds his dick on your butt. You do what you can to ignore him, a stupid mutt like him will never learn no matter how hard you try to train him. He starts whispering in your ear begging you to pls let him fuck you, let him fuck you in front of this person, he wants to show them that your his. He doesn’t care if the two of you are at the park. Kylar begins describing what he wants to do to you - bend you over the side of the fountain and fuck you in front of everyone. If someone tried to take your mouth he’d shove your head under the fountain water.
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.
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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!
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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.
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!
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
If Abe was being honest, life has not changed much since he first arrived from the ARK. Yes, life was much different, as he was finally on Earth but the enclosure somehow got smaller and lonelier.
Looking up from his book and down at the heart monitor next him, he watched his heartbeat continue it's receptive signals. 1 month officially on Earth and he had seen the sun once. Being the first kid born in space was not for the faint of heart and now on Earth he apparently became pediatrics favorite subject.
The journey from the ARK to the Earth was rather smooth, with Maria now being cured, Project Shadow had been deemed a success and they were finally allowed to go home. Maria, Shadow, and himself had had a group hug before they were each placed in capsules to sleep the journey down. Apparently it was easier on their bodies. While Maria had requested a truce between the two gentlemen, he was still uneasy with the alien life form aboard their ship headed to their home planet.
When he woke up in the room he was residing in, he was alone. His parents had come and gone but never stay for long. Even on the ARK they never stayed around him for long, the poor little accident. It didn't matter to him though, he liked his alone time.
But he had requested one thing from his father the day he had arrived, if he could call Maria. His father agrred and gave him the Robotnik family phone number, he'd be able to contact her there.
For the past three weeks he has been trying to contact her, but her grandfather continued to state that she was still recovering from the journey down. Which was expected. Maria had been recovering from an illness back on the ARK. If he had been experiencing some shocks in gravity, she must've had it much worse. Abe, against his better judgement, also decided to ask about Shadow. Sure they didn't have the best relationship but he must be worried sick about her as well, maybe he could give him a better update than the Professor.
"Project Shadow is no longer under my discretion, Young Towers. I do suggest you no longer question it's whereabouts," he had responded.
That was odd.
Sure, Maria's grandfather was cold but wasn't Shadow also his creation. He had called him son, once or twice. But, at least Shadow was under control. Hopefully.
That is until today, when a GUN solider came to his room followed by multiple nurses.
"Abraham Towers." the solider commanded.
"Yes."
"What is your relation to Project Shadow."
"Uh, well...I know of him. I spent time with him and Maria."
"He will do," one of the officers told his superior over the intercom.
"Hey, wait for what? My parents, what about-"
"Your parents are under GUN's jurisdiction."
"What is going on?" he questioned as he was placed in a wheel chair.
Abe was hauled out of the medical wing of the GUN base he had been placed in. Had he always been in a base? They made it seem like a regular hospital. They passed several corridors and down many floors of the place they were at, until they reached a dark window.
"What is wrong it?" The officer spoke again.
They turned on the light and he saw nothing but a white room, other a red and black ball in the corner.
"Is that Shadow?'
"Yes."
"I've never seen him do that, what did you do to him?"
"Project Shadow is in excellent condition but in the past two weeks, it simply failed to produce any positive outcomes. We have tried everything."
"Why me? Why not bring Maria? She's the one that dealt with him."
"Miss Robotnik is no longer under our discretion."
"I don't know what you want me to do. I can't fix him. He was born like that. Maria helps him but it's never forever. She always knows what to do or say in these situations. "
"So you have no relation to him."
"I mean I don't think so. We're not friends. His only friend was Maria. I'm the one stuck in the middle because he was so needy."
"Hmmm" the officer said before they placed a cloth on his face and he blacked out.
He woke up in his hospital room again, almost as if he had never been taken in the first place. He might as well try his daily call to Maria.
The nurse brought over a cart with a phone attached to it. He turned the dials through muscle memory and waited for the response.
"Hello?" he heard a very small voice through the line.
"Hello, is Maria awake yet?" he asked
"Abe?" the small voice responded.
"Maria?"
"Abe, I need to tell you something. I don't know what's happening to me. If anything, bad happens to me you have to promise me you'll protect Shadow."
"Maria what's wrong?"
"I know you two don't get along. I don't have much time. I don't know where they're taking me. I've been hiding in grandfather's study for as long as I can but-"
The line was cut.
"Maria? Hello."
He tried to dial again but the line was gone.
"Miss Robotnik is no longer under our discretion." he remembered the GUN officer say.
Abe decided to call his parents but once again the line was gone. "Nurse Mary, could you page my parents please." he requested.
"Of course." she replied.
Two hours later three officers came into his hospital room. "We're sorry to inform you that your parents have passed away."
"Wait what?"
"We have been tracking all the ARK arrivals for signals of space sicknesses and other ailments. They were asymptomatic to bone deterioration. You will be placed with extended relatives but if that does not resolve you will placed under GUN's authority. Do you understand?"
Abe nodded.
"Very well, you will be here until further instructions are we clear,"
"Yes sir."
With that the officers went out. Leaving Abe in tears and shock. He had just seen them yesterday, they were fine. His Physical Therapist came by an hour later to take him for his daily exercises to the workout room as if nothing had happened.
And he agreed. He got his therapy clothes and walked into a bathroom next to it to change. Only he never came out that door again.
Having a child running through the base was not something GUN had expected. Much less for him to know the codes to every single exit of the doors. Child of geniuses for a reason. They lost him two elevators out, as he landed in front of the window they had taken to him before. Only issue was that he didn't have the code or door for his room.
Shadow was still there. Only this time he was laying on the floor and looking at the white ceiling. Sure Shadow came from a monster, acted like a wierdo, and was just all out different; that still didn't mean he was meant for this. What could he do to get him out of there?
"Do you guys want to play spies?" Maria had asked one day, "So people don't know they're communicating they use morse code."
MORSE CODE! Of course!
Shadow should still know it. He knew everything about Maria, much like himself.
He tried to tap out
MARIA
No response. So he tried again.
"Maria." he saw Shadow mouth
THIS ABE
"Abe?"
MARIA TROUBLE.
Next thing Abe knew there was a whole in the wall and a very alive hedgehog next to him
"What's wrong with Maria?'
"I don't know. I haven't seen her since we've arrived. Last time I talked to her, she told me I had to protect you."
"Protect me?"
"Someone took her and my parents and maybe even the Professor. I don't know Shadow. We need to get out of here."
"You don't have to ask me twice," as he cradle carried Abe and ran.
Ticcijack toxic relationship cause it’s Halloween month
⚠️Tw: MINORS OK BUT DONT START SHIT - THERES NO NSFW - toxic ship, physical and emotional abuse, mention of cannibalism (it’s ej), dead dove do not eat, if you can’t handle these sorts of topics ignore this and scroll past.
“Why do I want to hurt you” Jack and “if you need to be mean be mean to me” Toby. Jack lashes out out of trauma from the cult or as I like to dub it “the accident” cause it wasn’t his choice to become the monster he is now. A half demon cannibal that loses his humanity with every human he eats to survive. He hates hurting others bc of his doctors oath (my version of ej he was just abt to graduate and had a hospital lined up to work in as he was the top of his class and while partying in celebration the night before they walk across the stage Jenny lures him into the cult fiasco that ruined him) and he especially hates hurting the person he loves. He can’t help it, sometimes Jack lashes out out of trauma and others out of hunger. He doesn’t like eating too often as he feels it strips him of what little humanity he has left but as a half demon Jack doesn’t have full control over himself when near starving. Onto Toby. He doesn’t feel the pain but it still shows on his skin and Jack always patches him up afterward out of guilt. Toby takes it cause he feels it’s his punishment for Lyra’s death (yes my vers he remembers) of which he blames himself for. The least he can do is take abuse from his lover to help make him feel better. Sometimes when Toby feels extra self destructive or self hating Toby will do or say something that triggers Jacks ptsd of the accident on purpose and cause Jack to harm him because of it. Toby always comforts Jack after he calms down from hurting him tho. Sometimes Toby does it to get Jack to bite him and eat a little piece of him linking the two of them together for the rest of Jack’s nearly immortal life. They’re messy ok I love them like that.
Not to be a degenerate (lies) but I would love to be stuck between a yandere laios and kabru. Poly or love triangle it just would be so great. Pretty boy Kabru at your back, kissing up your neck swaying you with such pretty words. Laios at your feet worshipping your body as he kisses up your legs and thighs, biting every now and then as he can’t get enough of you
⚠️ Minors ok on this post, drinking mention, gay ass bitches, NOT PROOFREAD
Jack in the med program and Liu a classics major. They meet in the library for a group study session and get along pretty well, swapping numbers. They dont get to hang often due to jacks busy schedule but when they do its always quiet and peaceful something they both need. Jack not being a psych major but having taken a psych class for his credits knows the basics about DID before meeting Liu. Liu doesn't tell him for a while and wrote in his notebook he shares with his alter to avoid jack when Liu isn't fronting, he taped a small polaroid selfie to that specific page so that Sully knows who to not hang around out of respect for Liu. LIU AND SULLY GET ALONG SULLY IS JUST A RAGE HOLDER AND IS MORE ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES. Their parents we'rent the best caretakers.. Jeff had a mental break where he tried to hurt himself and Liu being his older brother tried to get the knife away from him only for jeff to swing his arm out and cut liu across the face. Jeff went to a mental hospital for a bit and Liu feeling guilty tried to forcehimslf to forget about what happened when they were kids. Liu tends to be soft spoken and Jack enjoys speaking to him cause of it. Liu falls for jack first while jack is too preoccupied with his school and work that he doesn't even realize he likes Liu in that way. They both go to the same party by accident Jack's jock friends convinced him to take a break and let loose so jack gets himself hammered at the party and finds Liu being a wallflower with his own cup of alcohol. Jack drags Liu to dance with him the both of them having fun as they get drunk. Later on jack sneaks them onto the frat house roof for them to chill a bit as it was getting stuffy, they have some sexual tension while looking at the stars and jack eventually asks to kiss Liu and they share their first kiss under light polluted stars.
Rating: T
Words: 3419
Warnings: Strong language, smoking
Pairings: Phil Callahan x Heather Cooper, Eddie Munson x Dee Davis
Summary: The night of the "earthquake" that rent Hawkins, Indiana asunder, local nurse Heather Cooper(@chadillacboseman) disappears. In the chaos that follows, officer Phil Callahan, her paramour, searches for her, but is snubbed by his fellow officers, who are dedicating their time to other matters. Desperate and running out of time and patience, Callahan enlists the help of Dee Davis, local misfit teen and unlikely friend of Heather's(as well as the late Eddie Munson's girlfriend), who brings the rest of The Party to assist in the search.
Tags: @chadillacboseman, @roofgeese, @quantum-lover (please let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist!)
Notes: omg it's been so long since i actually wrote this chapter but i'm finally posting it! i just recently went back and did some editing on it, and enjoyed it so much that i wanted to share it publicly! i can't wait to find out more about season 5 so Tara and I can eventually continue the fic :D expect lots of Callahan getting roasted in this and in later chapters lol. hope y'all enjoy!
Deputy Callahan sighed a deep, weary sigh as he raised his hand to the door of the Davis household. It was getting late, and he didn’t want to be here, asking for help from the person in town who hated him the most. He didn’t want to potentially bring a teenage girl into imminent danger. But, the town was in ruins, and everyone else at the station was too preoccupied with other situations to help him. He was running out of time, and he was out of options. He rapped at the door with his knuckles and waited, stomach churning.
After the second round of knocking, the door swung open. It occurred to Callahan that this was his first time face-to-face with Mr. Davis, even after all the years of the Davis children getting into trouble. The man had the same green eyes as both his children, with a lot more baggage underneath. His hair was clipped short, military standard(as Callahan recalled, he was active-duty when the Davises moved to town), and he sported a simple mustache, not too dissimilar to Callahan’s.
He wondered briefly if Dee mocked her father’s facial hair, the way she mocked his when she thought he couldn’t hear.
“Officer,” Mr. Davis acknowledged the man with a gruff nod. “Can I help you?”
Callahan steeled his nerves. “Yes, I’m here because I need to speak to your daughter. It’s urgent. Is she here?”
Mr. Davis’s features stretched into a concerned frown. He sighed, looking away and rubbing his temples. “Look, Officer, if this is about the Munson kid–”
“No, no,” Callahan interrupted, shaking his head vigorously. He wasn’t going to open that can of worms right now. “Not about the Munson kid. Unrelated. But I need to speak to Dee immediately, and in private.”
The frown on Mr. Davis’s face only deepened, but after a moment of consideration, he swung the door open, stepping out of the way so the deputy could make his way inside. He led the man to the kitchen table, in the room directly after the entrance room. “Have a seat, sir. I’ll go get her. But I have to warn you, she’s… she’s not doing so well right now. Hasn’t said a single word since she got home earlier.”
Callahan took a seat, nodding silently in response to the man’s words and pulling a pack of cigarettes out from his breast pocket as Mr. Davis left the room, climbing the stairs in the living room. To be quite honest, he was surprised the girl was even home; he’d been trying to contact her all week, to no avail. Too busy hiding the Munson boy, he was sure of it.
He glanced around the kitchen as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, also dragging the ashtray at the other end of the table closer to himself as his eyes wandered. The kitchen was small, with yellow paint and a single wallpaper accent on one end. The room was sparsely decorated, but clean. A single pink apron hung over the doorknob to what Callahan could only assume was a pantry door, obviously belonging to the very girl he was here to see. He knew that only she and her father lived at this house regularly, with her troublesome older brother only visiting over the holidays.
After a few minutes of silence, save for the ticking of the clock above the stove and the sound of his own inhaling and exhaling of his cigarette, he heard the distinct noise of footsteps coming down the stairs. He looked in the direction of the doorway Mr. Davis had exited through, and as Dee Davis herself came through the doorway, he couldn’t help but stare, open-mouthed.
The kid looked like she’d been through hell and back.
Normally, when he was around her, she was covered in layers of oversized clothing, hidden in her own form of armor, making snide comments with a mischievous glint in her eyes. There was no hint of that girl here. She wore a giant t-shirt, of some rock band that Callahan didn’t recognize, and oversized pajama pants. Her face was bruised and cut to shreds with shallow scrapes, as though she’d been slashed over and over by… something. She also sported a large bruise circling her entire neck, as though she’d been strangled. Continuing to look over her, he noticed the same circular bruising around her wrists as well.
The thing Callahan noticed that hit him the hardest were her eyes. The usual glint in her eyes was gone, replaced by a haunting hollowness. At least, until she looked up to see Deputy Callahan sitting at her kitchen table.
The fire briefly returned to her, but it was far more intense than it had ever been. She always looked at him like she wanted to slap him upside the head, but this… was different. This was rage. She looked like she was out for blood.
After everything that had happened with the Munson kid, he couldn’t say he blamed her, but that didn’t make the situation any less awkward.
He cleared his throat, nodding to Mr. Davis, who was standing behind Dee, a protective hand on her shoulder. “Like I said, I need to speak privately with her.”
Her father glanced down at her, squeezing her shoulder. “You gonna be okay, kiddo?”
She didn’t respond with words, didn’t look back at her father, merely gave a curt nod. Her murderous gaze never left Callahan. With her acknowledgement, the man awkwardly backed out of the room, retreating to a nearby door and closing it behind him.
There was a pregnant pause as the two stared each other down. Dee silently walked to the edge of the table opposite him, her gaze piercing daggers into him, steps making no sound. If looks could kill, the deputy would have been long dead by this point. Normally he could barely keep her gaze on a good day, excusing himself as she stared him down, daring him to speak to her, but this time he didn’t flinch away. He stared right back at her, eyes sympathetic and pleading.
“What the hell do you want,” she spat out finally, her lip curling into a snarl as she spoke. She looked as though she was seconds from spitting the words directly into his face. Her sentence wasn’t a question, but a demand.
How dare you show your face here, was the silent implication behind it.
Callahan sighed once more, ashing his cigarette. “Look, Davis. I know I have no right to ask you this, but…” He swallowed. “I need your help.”
That was clearly not what Dee had expected.
Her brows shot up in surprise and confusion, her mouth dropping open of its own accord for a moment. A strangled laugh came out, as her eyes widened.
“You need my help?” She repeated back to him, stressing the last word. She laughed again, no humor behind it. “You,” she pointed to him, “need my help?”
He didn’t respond right away.
She slammed her hand down onto the table suddenly, causing the man to jump in his seat.
“You ran a hate campaign against my boyfriend, for murders you damn well know he didn’t commit, that no normal person could have possibly committed, and you have the audacity to ask for my fucking help?” Her voice raised as she spoke, and she couldn’t help but continue to laugh incredulously at Callahan’s request.
“You and that other idiot Powell let that piece of shit Jason Carver turn the entire town against him, let him form a lynch mob to try to hunt him down, and did nothing to stop him, and you want my fucking help? Instead of doing anything to stop that crowd, you decided to instead arrest a group of innocent teens in the woods and question them about Eddie’s whereabouts, while he was being hunted down by an entire town, and you want my goddamn help? How dare you?”
Callahan was finally unable to meet her intense, wide-eyed stare, moving his eyes down to the table he was sat at. This was going about exactly how he expected, he thought to himself bitterly.
“You have no right to ask me for anything, Callahan, you useless, cowardly sack of shit,” she lowered her voice back to a venomous hiss, leaning forward to make sure he could hear her perfectly clear. “Get the hell out of my house, or I swear to God, I’ll–”
“It’s Heather.”
Those two words gave her pause. Her expression faltered, and she backed away, looking at him not with the white-hot rage of before, but concern.
“...What?”
Callahan couldn’t mask the anxiety in his voice as he spoke.
“Heather. She’s missing, been missing since that earthquake that tore up the entire town. I’ve spent hours looking for her, and-” his voice cracked as he continued, “and all the other officers keep telling me they’re too busy to help find her. I know something happened during that earthquake, and I know she’s in danger, but I can’t–”
He broke off for a moment, to collect himself. He looked back up at Dee. She was watching him, her expression tinged with something like fear. He took a deep breath before continuing.
“I can’t find her on my own. And I know you and the other kids you hang out with know what’s going on with all this crazy shit happening, you all know way more than I do. Than anyone at Hawkins PD does. And… If there’s any chance of finding her alive, I need your help. I know I have no right to ask, after everything that happened this past week, but… I need your help to find her, Davis. Please.”
Dee didn’t immediately respond. She stared at him for a moment longer, unmoving, until finally, she ran a hand through her dirty blonde hair, looking away to the clock above the stove.
“...Fuck.”
Callahan just nodded in reply, looking down to the mostly spent cigarette in his hand. “Yeah. Fuck.”
She closed her eyes, exhaling deeply, both hands now in her hair. She stood there, deep in thought, before opening her eyes again. She looked down at him, not with anger, or fear, but with determination in her gaze.
“Wait here,” she commanded him, as she turned and began to walk out of the kitchen, to the stairs in the living room.
“Wait– What do you mean wait?” Callahan responded, starting to rise from his seat. “Where are you going?”
“Upstairs, I need to change, and, uh, grab some things. Give me ten minutes, I’ll be right back down, okay? Don’t fucking move,” she threatened, pointing a finger at him as she looked back over her shoulder. He obeyed, sitting back down with a confused expression as she ran up the stairs.
Callahan lit another cigarette, and then another as the minutes crept by. Ten minutes turned into twenty, and he briefly considered going upstairs to check on her, but thought the better of it. Almost half an hour crept by, and he began to wonder if maybe she’d snuck out of her own house to look for Heather on her own, when he heard the sounds of her descending the stairs, also hearing her voice.
“I repeat, this is a Code Red, anyone in range please respond, over. I repeat, this is a Code Red,” he heard her repeating the same phrase as she came into the kitchen, speaking into a walkie-talkie. She was in proper clothing now, but it was… battle-worn, he supposed, was the best way to describe it. A nondescript gray T-shirt was layered under a leather jacket, the latter completely covered in claw marks of some kind. Her jeans, rolled up at the bottom to reveal combat boots underneath, were torn in several places, and spatters of what looked to be dried blood and other assorted muck decorated the worn denim. Around her waist, he could see a utility belt of some kind, carrying a pistol(did she even have a permit for that?), a few cans of… something in an aerosol bottle, and a bottle of clear liquid with a rag sticking out, obviously a makeshift explosive.
What the hell were these kids getting up to this past week?
Callahan squinted in visible confusion as he continued to look the teen over. He also saw a backpack slung over one shoulder, and in the hand not holding the walkie, she carried a leatherbound journal. Seeing Dee with something to write in was never an usual sight, as she always had something on hand to write in, but this was easily the nicest quality journal the deputy had ever seen her with. Normally, it was just basic school composition books.
Dee completely ignored Callahan’s bewildered stare as she set the journal down atop the table carelessly, still repeating the same phrase into the machine in her hand.
“I repeat, this is a Code Red, anyone in range please respond over,” she droned, her voice getting a stronger edge of agitation each repetition. “I repeat, this is a goddamn Code Red, can one of you please pick up, for God’s sake–”
“Hello? It’s Nancy, what’s going on, Dee?”
The voice of Nancy Wheeler cut through Dee’s rant, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Finally! I’ve been trying to reach someone for like ten minutes now! Listen, my friend is missing, I’m going to try to find her and I need–”
“Dee? Are you okay?” Another voice speaks, one Callahan didn’t recognize. Another girl.
“Robin! Listen, I–”
“Hello?” came the voice of Steve Harrington. Callahan definitely knew that voice.
“Can you all please stop interrupting me? Christ! Where have you all been?” Dee yelled into the receiver, gripping the walkie as if she wanted to throw it against the wall.
“An earthquake just happened, our parents are all freaking out over us,” a fourth voice spoke up, audibly younger than the others. Dustin Henderson. One of the kids the deputy had found out in the woods. One of the ones that ran away from his questioning. He didn’t sound as worried as the others, his melancholic tone reminding Callahan of the haunted, dead-eyed stare Dee had on her face before she saw him.
“Okay, that’s fair,” Dee responded, running a hand through her hair, clearly exasperated. “Look, Miss Cooper from the local clinic is missing, and it’s likely with everything that’s going on that she ended up in the Upside Down. I’m going to look for her. Can any of you guys meet me there and help out?”
…The Upside Down?
There was an uncomfortably long silence, and Dee cursed under her breath, without her hand on the button, so her peers couldn’t hear. Finally, Steve spoke.
“Dee, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We just got back, and there’s probably a lot of people missing right now. I know you’re upset about Eddie, but… Maybe we should wait.”
So something did happen to the Munson kid. That explained a lot.
“All right, maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Dee spoke through gritted teeth, clearly annoyed. “I didn’t fucking ask if I should go back or not, Harrington. I’m going. I’ve lost too many people today already. Eddie’s gone. Max is in the hospital, and nobody knows if she’s going to wake up. Heather Cooper is my friend, and if there’s any chance at all that she’s still alive out there, I’m going to take it, and I’m going to find her. Spare me with your bullshit concern, okay? If you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but don’t you dare tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. It’s a simple yes or no question, are you in or not?”
Another uncomfortable silence followed. Callahan picked up quite clearly on the thick emotion in the girl’s voice.
“I’m in,” Dustin said, a hint of finality in his tone.
“Not you, Henderson,” Dee responded immediately.
“What the hell, Dee!?”
“Look, normally I’d have no issue with you coming, but you’re still hurt. You can barely walk right now with that leg dislocation. If we run into something dangerous down here, you’re a sitting duck. Stay up here and help from topside, okay? I’ve got my walkie and extra batteries, I’ll stay in touch.”
Dustin grumbled something barely audible from his end, obviously unhappy but in agreement.
Steve sighed into the receiver. “I’m not letting you go back in there by yourself, Dee. I’m in.”
“Me too,” Robin chimed in. “We might be able to help out other people too. And the town is definitely going to need all the medical professionals it can find.”
“I’m coming too,” Nancy added.
“Let’s do this,” a fifth voice spoke out of the blue, startling Dee, but Callahan recognized it immediately. Erica Sinclair. The young girl who’d slashed Powell’s tires.
“Erica? Where have you even been? No, absolutely not,” Steve started, but Dee spoke over him.
“Yes, Harrington. She’s not some helpless little girl. She helped save Max’s life.”
“Thank you,” Erica responded snidely to Dee. Callahan sighed, rubbing his temples. This was already a mess.
“What about Lucas?” Dee asked the young girl.
“There’s no way he’s leaving Max’s side. He’s still right there next to her, passed out,” the younger Sinclair relayed, her tone taking a melancholic turn.
“That’s fine, I didn’t think so.” Dee turned to the deputy, finally speaking to him. “So, Callahan, where was she last? You know that, at least?”
“Wait, Callahan? As in, Officer Callahan? The cop?” Robin asked, nervous.
A quiet “oh shit” came from both Erica and Dustin. Dee sighed.
“Yeah, he’s in on this too. I’m not happy about it either,” Dee narrowed her eyes directly at Callahan as she spoke, “but we don’t really have time to debate about it. Where was she last seen?”
Callahan blinked, not expecting to be put on the spot like that. “Um… She was walking home from the clinic?”
“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Erica pointed out.
“That’s fine. It’s enough to work with, at least,” Dee spoke over whatever response the deputy was going to come up with. “We’ll meet up at the clinic, follow her path home. I’m willing to bet that we’ll find part of the gate there, and that’s where we can go in and start looking. Harrington, you pick up Buckley. Wheeler, you’re closer to the hospital, so swing by and pick up Sinclair. I’ll ride over with Callahan. Everyone, bring whatever weapons you have. And if anyone has any extra cans of hairspray, bring them for me.”
“Why?” Steve asked.
“Because, Harrington, aerosol cans and a lighter are what kept the demobats from eating me. It’ll help, trust me. Henderson, you stay nearby and we’ll keep you posted, alright?”
Dustin sighed. “Fine,” he grumbled, not happy with not being included.
“See you guys in a bit, okay?”
Everyone responded with a quick affirmation, and then the walkie went dead. Dee turned to a very confused Callahan, still sat in his chair at the Davis kitchen table. “Come on, Stringbean, stop sitting there with that dumb look on your face. Time to go.”
The deputy frowned, but complied, pulling out his keys as he stood, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray before making his way toward the door. “I have… so many questions.”
“I’m fully aware,” Dee murmured as she grabbed the leatherbound journal on the table, following behind him. “I’ll fill you in on the way. We need to stop by the station first, though, if it’s still standing. Gonna need more than that dinky pistol, and I know you guys have bigger weapons there.”
Callahan wanted to point out that she also had a dinky pistol, but thought the better of it as he unlocked the car door, sliding into the driver’s seat as Dee sat in the passenger’s side. “Look, I don’t know what weapons you think we have. This is Hawkins, not some big-name city police department.”
“You have to have something more than just standard-issue,” she stressed, as the deputy put the keys into the ignition, starting the car. “I’ve been to most of the town halls here, I know you guys have some extra budget. Now shut up and drive. I have a lot of shit I need to explain to you before this all goes down.”
Callahan sighed. This was going to be a long night.
