Moxie together with his sort of bff Ruby
I actually have a surprising amount of art of these two together (well, two, but trust me that’s surprising for me)
Their relationship has always been rather interesting to me but requires a bit of background to understand. Moxie is born to the woman who’s the leader of a rebel movement that has base on a slightly forgotten island, over the years a whole village has grown there and it’s a somewhat of a self sustainible community. The moment Moxie is born his dad West just shows him to everyone cause he’s just so excited. That kind of start the trend of everyone knowing Moxie, leading to him being under a lot of pressure to not only preform but be sociable. Y’know when you have a school and the principle’s kid goes to said school, so all the teachers know them, and so do all the kids, that’s what i sort of imagine it being like
This really isn’t Moxie’s thing though, while he definitely is an extrovert this sort of being the one others look up to leader role has never been for him, he way more prefers leaving the decision making up to someone else and just completing what he has to. But he manages it, with his mum guiding him through it all.
Ruby, on the other hand, wanted to be Moxie. He wanted the adoration, the respect, he basically romantized Moxie’s life to the point he couldn’t see any faults in it while degrading himself in the process (I’m worse than that, I’m nothing if I don’t achieve that etc.)
The two of them were rivals/friends since childhood with Moxie leaning more towards the friend part while Ruby leaned towards the rivals part of it. Basically said Moxie just wanted someone to hang out with and put everything else aside around and Ruby saw Moxie as this unbeatable standart that he constantly tries to attain. This often showed when Moxie did something a bit more lax, something not so ‘protigy worthy’ which would lead to Ruby critisizing him rather heavily.
This whole image Ruby built of Moxie in his head changes after his mother died. Not that Moxie wasn’t vulnarable in front of him before, but this time it was so raw he could by no means ignore it. And it in a way messed with Ruby too because he just couldn’t get it through his thicc skull that yes Moxie isn’t perfect.
Their relationship got pretty strained after that, with Ruby demanding Moxie get better while he was still in a very fragile emotional state, not being able to handle the idol he built his life around crumbling like that. He even tried to rile Moxie up the only way he knew how, competition, which didn’t go well at all.
And then Ruby never saw Moxie the same after, the way he is nw he views Moxie as a different person completely. Most people do, Moxie’s change of personality wasn’t that severe but it’s just not something you’d realise unless you were close to him. Ruby, with his constant blindfolds, ofc doesn’t realise either.
Ruby will also swear up and down he hates Moxie but they still hang out rather often, not alone really but if Ruby is suppoused to sit next to someone high chance it will be Moxie etc.