random thoughts about my muses because i cannot think of them monotonously...
mihawk is at the height of his prowess, and perhaps half-drowned by the loneliness that comes with having no equal and nothing left that truly challenges him. the sheer boredom of it must be suffocating. does a man really need a better reason to train the one person who wants to surpass him? of course he would share his knowledge with zoro. of course he would take care of that ghost girl who suddenly appears in his castle, because what else is he supposed to do with all that talent and empty space?
imagine songbird initially believes there must be a way to use the cure for both herself and v, only to find out later that it cannot be shared between them. she was still in the process of researching when she contacted v. then later, v could have used the cure just as much as she could. so mi told v everything they needed to know in order to take it. she gives them the choice, but the choice comes at a price, like everything in night city, and it is never a small one. her whole life teaches her that survival is never clean and never freely given.
john's youth with dutch, hosea, arthur, and the rest does not fit the image of some dream family. he is basically pulled from one criminal environment into another, with the only real difference being that he is no longer alone. they do not shield him the way they later shield jack. they never truly teach john how to build a life of his own. dutch wants dependence more than independence. that becomes painfully obvious once john is working as a ranch hand after the gang falls apart. people had to teach him the most ordinary tasks from scratch, because all he really learned growing up was violence and impulsiveness.
she harvests the blooms at their peak, when the petals darken to a near black-red. geneviève dries, grinds, and sifts them, then mixes the powder with other reagents: iron shavings, ash from burned oaths, grave-dirt, and always her own blood as the binding medium. the result is an ink that looks like bruised fruit and congealed wounds. over the years, some of the older tattoos begin to pale, as though the colour is being eaten from within. where the plum shade once sits almost black beneath her skin, it turns muted grey-violet, like storm clouds rubbed thin. her body seems to consume the blood-pigmentation itself. the guild adds new designs, drives deeper lines, and stitches extra layers of cursework over the old marks. her skin crowds ... across the backs of her hands to the base of her skull. the old ink keeps paling. enough that some clauses feel looser, and some orders sting less when she hesitates.