my coffeehouse

In the Bunker Crew AU, Pursuer is able to assume the form of a Civilian (Civilians are almost identical to humans and fill the role of humans in their world, with the biggest difference to them and humans like those in real life is that some have a natural affinity for magic, whether they know it or not). It's not something Pursuer was always able to do, but it is a natural extension of the skeletal manipulation abilities that all Pursuers have. Normally, a Pursuer's control over its own skeletal system is really only useful for things like squeezing into tight spaces and triggering their invisibility, but due to a certain incident, this specific Pursuer has now extended that control to their muscular system, skin, and even internal organs. With this level of fine control over their own anatomy, Pursuer can go from being a tall, fearsome beast... to being just like any other Civilian you could meat- I mean meet!

Well, it's not really a perfect transformation. His eyes, hair, and nails are still accented with that distinctive green pigment that male Pursuers produce, and you'd definitely notice something off if you were to pry him upon and see his innards. He also has pink blood (this isn't accurate to his depiction in the Die of Death game where everyone has red blood, but whatever, I think it looks funny), and while it does look red when fresh if it comes out of his body while he's Percy, but it does turn pinkish as it rusts. Besides that, the main issue Percy has to deal with like this is that maintaining extreme alterations to his body requires him to remain full and sane. It's not as easy as it looks; he can't just survive off store-brought food, he has to still eat "fresh meat" (i.e. the meat of a freshly killed being), or else he'll slowly have his sanity consumed by hunger, and if he doesn't have any fresh meat for over 8 days, he won't be able to maintain his Civilian form at all and will go back to being Pursuer until he can be full again. While Percy hasn't yet been observed showing that big of a range of emotion, it might be best that he doesn't truly get mad (outside of being "hangry") that often, as it's suspected that if he royally pissed off or was put into a big enough state of acute stress, he would be forced to change back as well. Currently, the Bunker Crew doesn't fully understand why this anatomical manipulation ability only work correctly when Percy's "sober" unlike with his natal abilities, though if Bhut "Ghost" Jolokia had any guesses, he thinks that this ability is specifically fueled by the inherit "life force" that all creatures produce while alive and is quickly lost within hours upon death, but it's just a hypothesis.

Halfy is pretty obviously not a pureblood Civilian. The most clear giveaway of this is that she has only one eye and eyebrow, though she somehow still sees the world as if she has two eyes, but has other unusual qualities, such as being strong for somehow who doesn't have that much muscle, having sharp teeth, and possessing a long mane of hair that tend to have a mind of its own (which is surprisingly useful for filing paperwork).

Halfy is French on her mom's side, and she can speak both French and English. Her dad is apparently from Australia, though these claims are not easy to verify.

Halfy prides herself on being one of the most "generic" people you could ever meet. She is skilled with numbers and anything that involves paper, able to fill pages will all the information and calculations they need with ease. She tends to not be all that sociable, but that doesn't mean she has no friends, it's just that she tends be wary about which friendships she forms. Her closest friend is Raigken (in the Bunker Crew AU, Raigken is a robot that does some of the heavy lifting for The HQ's employees), whom she seems to be particularly fond of due to their lanky stature and silent disposition reminding her of her father. That said, her "generic" personality seems to have been built up as a self-defense mechanism, as she fears becoming a government test subject if she ever were to go to prison.

While Halfy almost wanted to go for the "shaved head" look in her teens, she decided against it as her hair reacts violently to getting a haircut. She's thus opted to keep her hair long, though she usually ties it back.

Halfy is cousins with Jean Fromage, AKA Artful (The two aren't that close of cousins though, as their specific relationship is that their mothers are cousins). She was the one who gave Artful his iconic half-mask; Halfy originally wore the mask to hide her lack of an eye, but decided she didn't need it anymore. These days, Halfy has a rather mixed perception towards Artful; she has happy memories regarding him, but she also sees him as a failure and a reminder on why one shouldn't let their emotions take over them.

Halfy does have a strong affinity for magic, just like Artful. Unlike with Artful, though, Halfy's powers where wholeheartedly embraced by her family, especially with her mom having a big interest in the occult and book collecting. That said, she is uninterested in using her powers for evil and just opts to use them to make some aspects of her life more manageable.

Halfy's relationship with her father is an... interesting case. Her father doesn't legally exist, but he does exist out there as a sort of neutral figure who like to observe the Civilians, though he can do horrific things to them if they do anything that upsets him. He does know a fair amount about the Killers, even having been a mentor figure for Pursuer by helping him perfect his ability to stalk and turn invisible. Due to his legal non-existence, Halfy's father is usually not an active presence in her life, but he still sometimes occasionally sends her mail and notes (even when she's as The HQ), and he also does show up to attend some holidays (mainly Father's Day, Halloween, and Christmas) with her. Halfy's parental situation does unfortunately make her the subject of "your dad went to go get milk/cigarettes" jokes, which infuriates her because they're actually untrue. Her dad's not a deadbeat, just someone who has to keep distance to avoid unwanted attention.

Halfy's favorite animals are butterflies, especially the summer azure (Celastrina neglecta). She sometimes collects their exoskeletons and strores them away in her personal museum.

Halfy's favorite flowers are saucer magnolias. She doesn't like roses all that much, and she used to be afraid of them due to an incident where she bled from being pricked by a rose's thorns while gardening and thought she was going to die. That said, she has gradually overcome her fear of them due to learning more about how to protect herself and also forming a friendly acquaintance with Kind Gal, who does have a fondness for roses.

This reimagining of Cana was kind of overdesigned on purpose. I wanted to lean more into his nature as someone who likes VTubing and otherwise being theatrical, so I thought it'd be fitting to give him an outfit that would look pretty difficult to wear in real life. That said, the amount of skin the outfit is showing does work in Cana's favor, since it gives them room for their tail and wings.

This design for Cana did take some visual motifs from deer with the inclusion of antlers and a short tail, which I thought would be fitting since Love Me does reference deer a few times and alludes to Cana's backstory as the "prey" of a toxic relationship. I also did take some inspiration from flying foxes, mainly with the addition of bat-like wings to Cana's design.

I changed the look of Cana's horns pretty drastically. I kept the colors the same, but I changed them to look like antlers, with their specific shape being inspired by the antlers of a sambar deer (though not an exact match). And also since I liked the idea of the Department Heads having their horns spiced up with some sort of motif (a cake-like look for Sarai, a star for James), I decided to give his horns eyes. Sure, they look like leaves from far away, but indeed, they are functional eyes. Envy is infamously kind of a difficult sin to allude to visually (Some sins, like Gluttony and Greed, have obvious symbolism you can turn to like food or money), but eyes do seem to be a popular choice, probably because Envy usually manifests as constantly observing others because you want to be just like them. Plus, I think the eyes work in favor, because it'd be much more difficult for someone to backstab him now.

The front of Cana's outfit was changed pretty drastically. I thought Cana's outfit looked too similar to James Vela's 2021 design's outfit, so I wanted to give him different upper wear. Instead of a sheer sleeveless top, I opted to give him a form-fitting black shirt that also functions as his gloves, though it also has cutouts in the front and cuts off high enough to expose the scarring on Cana's chest (I don't know if Cana's design was actually SUPPOSED to have scarring on his chest or not as it's kind of hard to tell with the art style he's drawn in, but you know what, I'm rolling with it). I did keep the pants and the middle of the outfit relatively the same, though.

I ended up changing Cana's eye color from black with green pupils to red and blue with green pupils because I think it helps bring more attention back to his face, since those colors aren't used anywhere else. I do think Cana would still switch up the look of his eyes sometimes, considering his depiction in the first verse of "Love Me" (which is meant to look like a Japanese visual novel) gives him green eyes with black pupils and a more 90s anime-esque eye shape.