Bruce is actually really attractive, and I have enough reasoning to make a list
He's:
Tall (. Tall enough to hit his head on the vault doorframe)
Long-legged
Has a straight nose bridge
Has high cheekbones (more noticeable in 2nd pic below)
Has a strong jawline
Sharp eyes, but they aren't small (plus eyebags if you're into that)
Overall, he has strong, attractive facial features
Has broad, refined shoulders. You can tell he works out (or he did, when he was alive)
Even has a thick, muscly neck
He has MUSCLE. Is SCULPTED. NOICE. VERY NOICE. (nice arms. Nice shoulders. Nice neck. Nice legs. Nice butt-)
(There are actually panels where you can see some of his muscles. Other than those already shown here, he's got bricky thighs-
-and in the panels where we first get his name dropped, he's got those shoulder blades too-)
The one time we see him smile, and he actually has a scary one
Has small, kinda sharp pupils, and his eyes remind me of a cat. We only ever saw him tense or defensive, so his resting/listening face is really cute
Other than the physical appearance stuff, he also:
Takes shit without batting an eye (patience, knowing it's just how Kudo is, etc)
Kudo being all "Cut the crap Bruce and give it to me straight", after Bruce tests his blood and is rightfully Concerned because they just faced AFO
Put up with Kudo's experimenting and testing over Yoichi's transferable Factor
Did ya'll see the look on Kudo's face when he realized he had Yoichi's Factor/will? Kudo was going to start in nonsense and Bruce just dealt with that.
Also something I noticed when looking back at the images here; Bruce has bandages on his arms in the void. But not when he faced AFO in the sewers.
Were he and Kudo cutting their arms open in their experimenting over Yoichi's theory? Is this why Kudo has two gauntlets instead of his one? Why we never see his bare arms in the void? That he always keeps his arms down so there's no slip?
Is smart enough to run blood tests, plus has enough common sense to pick Shinomori as his successor
He picked a guy who avoids society, has an Ability to detect danger so he can always stay away from AFO, is also a coward so he's never going to go throw himself into danger, even without knowing instinctively he stands no chance, etc.
Meanwhile, Kudo chose Bruce, who he played Hot Potato Yoichi with; but he did also trust Bruce, and put the only pure combative Ability in OFA through Bruce.
These two made their choices based on what they valued and saw the Factor needed.
Is logical, analytical, and calm.
He tried advising Midoriya on their Abilities in One For All, especially his own.
Midoriya then tried ignoring him about using Fa Jin for the first time, but found he was right, thinking: "Dammit!! I had [Lady Nagant] right where I wanted her, but... ugh! The Third was right. My parallel Quirk processes are all screwed up!" (ch. 314).
Plus, when Midoriya fixed his processing mistakes, Bruce was analyzing the way he reached his new conclusion. Pure facts, no bias, very calm, just saying it as it was.
We never see him panic. When he's caught by surprise in the sewers by AFO, Kudo, and Yoichi's little bubble event, he immediately reacts. He doesn't falter, he just knows he has to do something right now.
Was more willing to listen than Kudo to Yoichi's beckon, and probably was just following Kudo's rejection of Midoriya
While we don't see Kudo's face, we see Bruce's eyes when Yoichi calls on his heroes. Bruce was more open and receptive, or at least more impacted.
Bruce was also the one to start talking, while Kudo just kept quiet.
He actually communicates a lot
When Yoichi called them to support Midoriya, Bruce started talking to paint a picture of why they thought the way they did, so Yoichi understood where they were coming from.
(Though he seems to beat about the bush sometimes, since Kudo spoke up to be direct on how they couldn't just put their trust in some starry-eyed teenager. Plus, when Kudo tells him to just tell him what's wrong [double Factors])
When Midoriya first used Fa Jin against Nagant, Bruce came out just to tell him he knew what he was trying, but that Midoriya wasn't ready; and Midoriya found he was right. Midoriya just didn't want to listen to him then.
He asks Kudo for clarification after finding Kudo had two Factors in him after the sewer incident ("Just to be sure, All For One didn't touch you, right?") Kudo knew him well enough to go "stop beating around the bush and tell me", so Bruce was probably gonna start with questions, theories, and trying to understand everything in general, before saying "yeah you have two Factors. Don't know why".
Is strong-willed and loyal.
He followed Kudo, even to death, carrying on the cause he started until it ended with him.
Plus, when talking about how AFO needs a strong will to override OFA's own, we first see Bruce, Kudo, and Yoichi.
AFO couldn't steal OFA because the will was too strong for him, and that was back during Banjo's time. Since Shinomori never actually tried opposing AFO and just hid, we can assume the first Three (Yoichi, Kudo, Bruce) already had an accumulation of strong willpower that made OFA un-stealable. Those three are a strong enough foundation, and the main wills, that the other users just become bonuses.
Kudo, also saying that Midoriya needs allies with the same will and drive as him... hey Kudo, you're talking about yourself and your old allies, aren't you? That's why you look at Yoichi and Bruce when you say this.
Not only is Bruce attractive, but he's got good character. THE END.
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The Fall of the Persian Empire
Observations from the Random Access Horny Memories of Ayush Pujari — II
This works as a standalone but read the first observation here if you’d like! Ayush is pronounced ī-yoosh. This one is written more as in-the-moment experience than later-recounted-memory bc I don’t like writing in past tense <3
- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - —
The plan, originally, like originally originally, when the three of them dispersed over the east coast to their respective colleges, was that they’d get together to play AOE2 online every weekend, and it was, of course, adorably naive of them. The plan amended itself more than once as they each began their lives without each other, as the realities of new friends and internships, of hangovers and essay deadlines, dwindled down the frequency to a more sensible, reality-wary, ‘every so often whenever they all had time.’
Caliph promptly got incredibly busy when he transferred to Oregon to start a new major two years late, and any suspicions Ayush and Naveen had about whether or not he was legitimately too busy or just didn’t feel like hanging out were dissolved when Caliph very casually graduated from U of O in two years time with a double major.
In any event, he’s been free again, and remembering how to play. Not quite back on Ayush or Naveen’s level yet, but a capable player.
So it catches Ayush’s attention, how far behind Caliph is, when he glances at the corner of the screen after several minutes to notice Caliph hasn’t even clicked up yet.
“Bhai, how are you still in the dark age, what’s going on?”
“I’m starting off on a terrible foot here,” he laughs. “I’m using my roommate’s computer, snf! and his monitor and keyboard is—honestly his whole desk is—covered in dust, I’m discovering.”
“Oh no!”
Oh… oh fuck. Dust has always made Caliph kinda sniffly but it’s not something Ayush ever really paid much attention before that summer, because it was before he was entertaining any interest in Caliph. Now he finds himself exceptionally interested.
“Yeah yeah, the old ‘my roommate’s desktop is covered in dust’ excuse,” Ayush says, impressing himself with his normalcy.
Caliph laughs and it mingles with an allergic-sounding cough. “Yeah well admittedly I also forgot to put enough villagers on wood production, snff!”
“Classic.”
A couple more agitated sounding sniffles and then an offhanded proclamation, “God I’m probably gonna start sneezing up a storm in a minute here.”
Ayush mentally bluescreens and forgets what he was doing for a moment, as this may in fact be the hottest innocuous sentence he’s ever heard Caliph speak, and it makes every sniffle take on new intrigue worthy of unreasonably rapt attention.
Caliph sniffles through resource gathering and upgrades and jokes and a bit of an argument over whether or not it was very cool of Ayush to go so far as actually walling off a particular cluster of gold mines for his civ alone, and whether or not the rule of capture is a fair argument if divorced from the condition of land ownership, and whether or not it was appropriate for Naveen to then have a couple men-at-arms have a go at said wall.
Meanwhile there seems to be an invisible unspooled thread reaching from Caliph’s agitated sinuses in D.C. all the way to Ayush’s groin in Boston such that every fucking time Caliph sniffles, the thread tightens and they become viscerally connected.
Ayush is not annoyed by Caliph so much as he is by the tension inherent in the constant thread-tightening, but when he does notice something to be annoyed at Caliph about, it’s almost a viable excuse to air the frustration, to direct it somewhere other than his own body.
Caliph is often accused of playing AOE like a pacifist. There’s a certain sentimentality to his play style, in constantly avoiding the loss of any units at any cost. It was just a tendency he had, to shy away from conflict — which is all well and good but not when you’re playing a game whose entire point is victory by conquest.
“Caliph, I hope you know we’re not playing Gandhi style. You do need to actually, you know, build a military.”
“I have one! I just upgraded to knights, snf! thank you very much, snffh!”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t see your stable.”
“Sta-bles, actually, snff! I even have three of them.”
“Oooh well would you look at who learned to stop worrying and love the bomb,” Ayush praises, in lieu of an apology for accusing him of nonviolence.
“In that case could you send some of your knights over here? …Caliph?”
And then… both Ayush’s focus and his frustration fall completely away, ears perking at his favorite sound, which, on this occasion, is a stunningly resonant, borderline melodramatic, somehow mellifluous;
“AYYIIHHHoo!”
Oh?
“Oh,” Naveen laughs.
And bless his goddamn heart, one doesn’t seem to be enough for Caliph. The next two each start off harsh and yet finish with a last syllable that strikes Ayush as an attempted return to a more appropriate speaking volume. Pointedly quiet exhales, exerting meager control over the only part of the equation he is able to modify. It’s almost sort of sweet.
“AIISSSue! Hh! iih���IIHKSSSyue-h! Oh my goodness excuse me,” Caliph laughs. “Yeah here, snf! you can have my whole modest little cavalry.”
Oh my goodness excuse me. Ayush has to literally bite his hand to keep from making noise.
“I don’t need them all, just—well how many do you have?”
“Um, snffh! Lemme… hh… checkhangon—”
A series of fluttery breaths, each beautifully audible and Ayush has turned the volume on his phone all the way up and he knows this but still he presses the volume up button again just in case he can experience this any more. He has six idle villagers right now and he’s stalled on housing and he takes this game seriously but none of it matters at all because Caliph, holy shit.
It’s slightly muffled but not enough to quiet him any, and so emphatic it almost just sounds like he’s shouting, or like the sound is being tugged from him and yanked harder at the apex of a syllable break.
“iihhh’YISSHH-hoo!”
Naveen says, “Gawwwd bless you.”
“Hhwhy thank you.”
Ayush joins into their laughter but truly he’s functioning on autopilot right now and the Byzantine civilization is paying the price.
“Okay but give me your fucking horses already, pony up. Pony me up,” Naveen says.
Caliph chuckles, sniffles a number of times and says, “Alright alright, they’re on their way.”
“Ayush where did you go?”
Fucking nirvana.
“Uhh, fending off a quick skirmish from red,” he lies. “S’all good.”
“Do your parents say bless you?” Naveen asks. “Mine don’t.”
Ayush manages to pipe in, “Nooo, I just apologize.”
“Same here,” Caliph says, imitating a timid, “‘Kshama karen!’”
Naveen adopts a terrified voice and says, “‘Sorry Babaji! Sorry Maaji!’”
Ayush laughs loudest.
“I remember… I don’t recall what grade but it must have only been a year or so after we moved here, one of my teachers enforced it as a politeness thing,” Naveen says. “‘What do we say when someone sneezes?’ And I’m there like ‘I have absolutely no idea.’”
Caliph chuckles. “I like saying it to people, I think it’s nice.”
“It is nice!” Naveen agrees.
“Actually I remember one time my father was sick and I kept saying bless you and he told me to stop, he was like,” — Caliph adopts his father’s voice and accent, both pretty effectively — “‘Bless you bless you bless you, who taught you this??’ And I guess I was feeling defiant because I said ‘America’…”
They laugh as he continues, “And he did not like that.”
And while Caliph’s delivery is amusing, Ayush finds the sentiment itself rather sad, thinking of young Caliph cowering under his father, because he remembers young Caliph cowering under his father.
So he’s saying what he wants to under the guise of sarcasm. “Answering a rhetorical question in good faith, Caliph, you absolute disgrace.”
Caliph laughs, the sound this time devoid of allergy symptoms and yet apparently still capable of dealing Ayush physical consequences. “Could I borrow some stone from one of you, by the way?”
“Yeah here, three hundred pity stone for Persia.”
“Thank you, I’m really struggling hhere…” he says, trailing off for a moment with two barely perceptible, staccato pants but then seeming to fight it off for the time being. “Oi, this dust is taking me down.”
“The entire Persian empire brought to a grinding halt on account of dust.”
“Truly,” he coughs.
“Oh, what happened to your monks by the way? Didn’t you have a few?”
“I think they’re uhh, snf! they were somewhere around here... I’ve misplaced my army,” he sniffles. “Sorry, my eyes are watering so badly right now that I can’t really make out the map, sxff! Tears are like streaming down my face, I’m crying my contacts out.” He laughs, very briefly, and then his breath catches yet again and Ayush makes an involuntary sound and decides to just mute himself for the moment.
And it’s a good thing he does because he can’t be expected not to react when Caliph loses himself enough to get dramatic about it—gasping in a pitchy inhale and then succumbing to a vicious series of sneezes and emphasizing each one more than the last like he could scratch the itch with his voice alone.
“h’JIISSHue! Hh-! JISSHHzue! hihd’IIZSHHyue?! …ZJIIISHHHyiuu!”
Ayush can only stare absently at his own unmoving cursor, hovering over a dropdown menu that he, presumably, clicked for a purpose that now escapes him.
“Bless—”
Caliph’s concluding remark soars into a pitch Ayush didn’t know he was capable of reaching; a dizzied, breathless, “Hhuh-JIIHHOOO!”
Ayush and Naveen duet a heartfelt, “Bless you,” during which Ayush realizes he’s still muted, so he unmutes and says it again.
“Thank you, snfff! Jesus, snf!” he says, sounding truly winded.
“Caliph, buddy…”
Ayush is rarely into nose blowing sight unseen but under the right circumstances he can be and these must be the right circumstances because he feels himself swelling even at the sound, and it’s an effort to keep his voice light as he asks, “Are you okay?”
“Uh huh,” Caliph manages, not terribly convincingly and between furious sniffles.
“Can you breathe?”
He laughs, coughs, says, “Sort of.”
“Caliph is having technical difficulties.”
“Sorry, my nh-hh-nose is-hH? AyyyYIISSHHoo! My nose is staging a mutiny, snffh!”
Ayush wants to say something but gets distracted by Caliph’s current inability to properly enunciate the word mutiny, because that sounded much closer to ‘butiny’ and it’s doing things to him.
“Bless you, damn,” Naveen says.
“Oh my goodness, snff! I’m not sure if h! if I-hH! HHAIYYYSSHHHOO!”
A strangled struggle of a sneeze that sounds like it catches in several consecutive places along Caliph’s throat, and desire crashes so hard over Ayush that he has to close his eyes for a moment. God, he’d literally awoken yesterday morning with his toes tangled in the underwear of a casual hookup without batting an eye and yet here he is rendered nonfunctional by nothing more than a loud series of syllables. A sneeze he didn’t even see.
“Bless you,” Ayush says, a couple seconds late, his tone of voice, perhaps, overly casual to overcompensate for how overexcited certain parts of his body feel at the moment.
“Thank you, wow, snffffh! Okay friends yeah, I’m not sure if I can keep playing like this and I’m of no use to the cause right now, snff! I think I have to get out of this room, snf! unfortunately, snfff! I’m so sorry guys.”
Nooo bhai, please don’t go, he thinks.
“Yeah bhai, go get some fresh air,” he says.
“Seriously, we’ve lost enough good men today.”
He apologizes again. They make plans to try to play next weekend, loosely aim towards a time of day they might all be free. And after some more silly about-to-get-off-the-phone conversation (“Well, GG.” “Not especially. GG dust, maybe.” “Yes, good game, dust.”), Caliph bids them a sniffly goodbye. Then he surrenders, officially, and the little message flashes across the screen.
‘HowNowCalChow has resigned’
“RIP Caliph,” Naveen says.
Ayush, nearly bloated with lust and feeling absurd, looks over his neglected economy in the wake of what just went down. An invading band of red’s knights have taken his lapse as opportunity and are currently burning several of his farms, but for a few more seconds, all Ayush can do is grin to himself like an idiot.
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