Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 8.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I finally read the newest Beast Complex chapter. And it was even more messed up that I had hoped for:)
This chapter’s title is “The Pig and the Peacock”. We meet one of the animals who lives in the Hidden Condo where Legosi lives. His name is Eugene... and he is something as bizarre as a taxidermist.
Yeah, you can actually be that for a living in the messed up world of Beastars/Beast Complex. Animals hire his to stuff dead animals to preserve them. Eugene’s clients are mostly animals who wants to have their dead family in a condition so they will last forever or someone who wants a celebrity “immortalized” so to say.
Think that is messed up? Sure, it is. But do you have any idea what us humans do to our dead just to make them look nice for the funeral? this is just taking it to the next level.
Eugene is proud of his profession since he admire the physical attributes of all animals, that they all have unique traits that makes them beautiful.
But not as beautiful as the cop who one day enters his store...
The police officer’s name is Gerbera(Yep, like the flower. More of that later). He has been asked to keep a close eye on Eugene and his store. Sure, what Eugene does is amoral and mostly socially unacceptable, but it is not illegal. But it is still in a grey area, so Gerbera is watching the pig taxidermist to make sure he doesn’t push it and breaks the law.
And Eugene sure keeps an eye on the peacock. He has never seen a animal as beautiful as Gerbera and right away feel as if he is looking at a piece of art and what Gerbera would look like in one of the glass boxes he keeps stuffed animals in(ew...).
Gerbera and Eugene eventually becomes friends and even goes out for drinks. While intoxicated, Gerbera apologizes for once saying that Eugene’s shop was in poor taste and that he would do anything to make it up for him.
Eugene does have... one request...
No, Eugene didn’t kill Gerbera and stuff him, he is not a total psychopath. He is extremely weird though, and asks the beautiful peacock to undress and go into one of his glass boxes so he can watch him and enjoy the view of the living masterpiece body.
Gerbera is oddly enough okay with this... and he starts to unpack. He tells Eugene that he inside this glass cage feels like a preserved flower, that his mother named him after a flower in the hope he would be in “full bloom” his whole life, that he gets harassed by the other cops for his looks and flirtatious nature. And then he drops one heck of a bomb...
Yep, he asks Eugene to stuff him.
... Like... Dude.
Our peacock is depressed since he knows that he can’t stay pretty forever. And he has been transferred to an extremely dangerous district where there are a ton of violent incidents that involves hungry carnivores. He will most likely not stay alive for long as a tasty law-keeper in that district. So Gerbera requests to be be assisted in this extravagant suicide so he can remain in bloom forever, like a flat flower in a collectors book.
This shocks Eugene.
He even starts hallucinating and imagine that his stuffed animal collection comes to life. Not because of guilt, but because he has been presented to a new type of beauty that he cant preserve.
Gerbera, his “living” art piece has just spilled the beans and shared his inner struggles and fears. He has shown him how he is unique psychologically. Eugene has no idea what the stuffed animals in his shops were like, what sort of life they had or if they had hopes and fears. and he never made an effort to find out anything about the animals he stuffed OR about Gerbera, he was just interested in their bodies.
Gerbera is begging Eugene to “immortalize” his beautiful body, something that is new to the pig taxidermist. Gerbera is asking Eugene to cross that line that the peacock cop was suppose to make sure the pig wouldn’t cross. Eugene begrudgingly says that he can’t do it on the spot since he needs the right equipment, so he asks Gerbera to show up the next day.
The peacock DOES show up the next day, ready to die so he can remain pretty as a stuffed toy.
But instead of finding Eugene ready to stuff him, he finds the shop being filled up with flowers. Gerbera flowers, 500 in total. Eugene has bought them as a goodbye gift for Gerbera because of his transfer. Eugene tells Gerbera that it is his wish that he should “keep blooming” every single day, more or less telling him that stuffing him would be a waste.
Gerbera accepts the gift and keeps living his life for better or worse as he starts off his first day in the infamous district 17 by giving out flowers to all the scary looking and possibly criminal carnivores.
This was quite an interesting chapter. We expand the world of Beastars/Beast Complex as well as getting a slightly disturbing tale about beauty and the illusion of preserving beauty