If There’s A Male Character I Care About (when I’m Writing), There’s Like A 50% Greater Chance

@mekabound​ sent:  “ you’ll be okay somewhere in that vague future tense ” (uc verse? :0)

 cursed suggestion   ☆☆   accepting!!

  at that, he can’t help but snort a weak laugh. it’s not the most REASSURING way to word such a thing, but the fact that it earns amusement might actually make it MORE USEFUL.

     “ i think you need to spend less time with dox, ”  he comments, shifting his position on the couch where they both sit, legs bent at the knees and feet occasionally touching on the middle cushion.  “ you’re starting to SOUND like him. ”

in this case though, shiro doesn’t mind it so much. he minds even less that d.va is HERE, keeping him company on one of the days where his symptoms are flaring up enough that the pain is TOO MUCH for even stand up for long. her company is some which he’s already come to enjoy, but on days like this... the distraction of having another person around helps a LOT.

     “ ‘ that vague future tense, ’ huh, ”  he repeats, tugging on the blanket spread across the both of them in an effort to cover more of himself. there’s no malice whatsoever in his tone as he continues, merely a WRY smile to signify he’s joking, albeit rather darkly;  “ so, the day that everyone in the city GETS ALONG and the barrier is opened? ”

@grimesucker​ sent:  ❛ Everyone has secrets and if you keep asking, you’ll see how far I’m willing to go to keep mine. ❜

across the universe   ☆☆   accepting.

  brought to an abrupt halt by the words, or perhaps more by the severe tone in which they’re spoken, shiro falls still and simply blinks at dox, eyes wide. while he’s NO STRANGER to dox’s more harsh tones of voice, it’s not often that they’re directed at HIM. typically, dox is talking to some other slumrat in this manner, whether they’re deserving of it or not, so whenever it does come ‘round to focus on him... shiro is startled every time.

it isn’t as though he’d been egging the man on or anything, either. yes, he may have been asking questions, but they had been INNOCENT  ---  mere efforts to understand dox better  ---  and not remotely forceful. ironically, these are usually the things that have made the mender snap at him in the past, too, although there have been times where the boy had been more insistent.

     “ i’m not trying to... ”  trailing off, shiro blinks again, hesitates, then lowers his gaze. he GETS that everyone has secrets. he GETS that people in the undercity have more than people on med-lev. he GETS that they’re willing to go farther to protect them. what he DOESN’T GET is why, even when they’ve practically become family, dox is so ABSOLUTELY ADAMANT to not share so many things with him.

for a moment, shiro remains as he is, but soon exhales a low breath. a step is taken back to signify him backing down from the confrontation  ( one that he didn’t want started in the first place )  and, turning away, he shakes his head.

     “ sorry. i wasn’t trying to upset you. ”

sentences from the youtube series  ,  buzzfeed unsolved .  primarily taken from season 5′s supernatural investigations .

“ it doesn’t matter because you’re dead ”

“ it’s not impressive  ,  no one’s impressed ”

“ the spot of your death is now a lovely gift shop ”

“ as god as my witness  ,  he snapped him in half ”

“ i seriously want you to throw something right at my face ”

“ you can live in the cave ”

“ i’m a big fan of your name ”

“ the fact that you steal  ,  that’s really funny to me ”

“ that’s the greatest thing to steal  :  a man’s joy ”

“ because i’m a masochist ”

“ i’m going to regret this ”

“ i’ve lost the ability to feel ”

“ they’re gonna fucking murder you ”

“ the way you shushed me was quite rude ”

“ cowards  ,  all of you ”

“ i’m strange and off putting ”

“ i should not feel confident in the face of any man ”

“ here you are  ,  smiling in the face of the devil ”

“ i hate bats ”

“ bats sometimes carry rabies and that’s a thing i’m afraid of ”

“ not today devil birds  ,  not today ”

“ i think i’m blacking out right now ”

“ i don’t think i’m going to remember this moment ”

“ i think i’m gonna cry ”

“ i keep forgetting there’s ghosts in here ”

“ if you know me and my debilitating fear of bears  ,  this is my worst nightmare ”

“ i’m standing on an altar alone ”

“ maybe you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and eat your cat ”

“ i’m so glad that’s over let’s go eat taco bell ”

“ were you making horse noises ? ”

“ in case any of you needed a reminder this place is a twisting nightmare ”

“ there’s a good chance i’m gonna fart in here ”

“ well this is horrifying ”

“ let’s do each other a favor and not show ourselves to each other ”

“ if you could do me a big solid and not do anything that would be sublime ”

“ this is just as horrifying as i thought it would be ”

“ you talk to hide from the silence ”

“ do i look like the kind of man who could give advice ? ”

“ several bad choices have lead me to this moment ”

“ let’s play look at the ceiling tiles !  1 , 2 , 3 , 4 … ”

“ i just wanna know if you think they have belly buttons ”

“ i did meet some of the most insufferable people but they also met me ”

“ if it sounds like a duck and walks like a duck ”

shieldedchild·.

“Um. Excuse you? I love painting my nails. It makes me type way faster.”

What she really meant was that it made her feel cooler to type with painted nails, but this is one of the rare occasions where she’s willing to blend fact and opinion.

Although, she does admit, “It’s just been a while since I’ve done my nails. And I usually scratch all the paint off pretty quickly.”

With a bustling sound, Katie drops his hand and squints Shiro down, “Look, are you really going to talk yourself out of a free pedicure? Because I don’t give out family discounts.”

     “ no, no, i’ll take the manicure offer. i know how high your rates are. ”

  he can’t help but to laugh affectionately at katie’s words as he runs with the joke. it’s a laugh he doesn’t get to use often enough these days, but this... this conversation about something MUNDANE as painting nails and the kidding around... it feels a lot like things used to be, and it’s nice.

     “ why don’t you go grab your supplies, and i’ll wait here for you. set up a space for us to do all this. sound good? ”

tfw ghost makes you think about the potential uc verse for a canon muse that you don't even write, and you're tempted to pick them up just for that

anyone remember how i said i’m in love with the latest smite god? yeah... if a primordial goddess in the form of a sea dragon who views humans as inferior vermin sounds like ur jam, she there.

the undercity is a world created entirely by ghost / @grimesucker​. i recommend checking out his blog if the setting interests you because it’s incredibly well developed and full of amazing ideas and characters. i won’t be explaining details of the city here, only how shiro fits into the world. for more info and explanation on certain aspects, you can find that all on ghost’s blog.

age: 17+

nickname most know him by: fifteen  (given to him by dox; because he’s missing a hand, he has fifteen fingers & toes instead of the usual twenty)

original level: med-lev

after the death of his mother, shiro ran from the home for orphaned children  —  something he now recognizes as a dumb mistake.

while trying to survive on his own, he accepted help from someone who worked for 5liip, though he had no idea, and once this was found out by authorities, shiro was marked and sent down to the Undercity as punishment.

within his first few days trying to survive on his own down THERE, shiro stepped in to a fight in order to protect a stranger. this resulted in the majority of his right arm being cut off.

both his being cast down to the undercity and being so injured were actually planned by 5liip and executed at his order. shiro is seen as a perfect way to get at dox, who has a weak spot for kids and the ability to heal. though he’s unaware of it, shiro is a tool for 5liip to attempt to weasel his way closer to dox for his future plans.

a slumbrat finds the bleeding shiro and brings him to dox, who heals the injury and thus saves the boy’s life.

from here, shiro takes to crashing on dox’s couch, at first allowed to stay until he recovers. even once he has though, with nowhere to go and very little understanding of the undercity, shiro sort of just… stays. dox never actually kicks him out. he becomes an uninvited roommate but is eventually accepted as actually living there.

he helps dox out wherever he can, part to earn his keep and to try to pay the guy back. in particular, he helps out with the kids that dox watches over.

dox makes shiro a prosthetic arm. it’s low quality, made from spare parts he has around, but it’s functional and shiro  is eternally grateful for it.

shiro is regularly sent baskets of food from 5liip, an “apology” for his fate of being trapped in the undercity.

the slumbrats don’t accept shiro in the beginning, as he comes from an upper level, something he catches a lot of shit for. over a long span of time, however, they do come around, as he’s become something of a big brother to them all, helping dox to take care of them and often putting himself at risk for them.

in kind, dox and shiro develop a familial relationship over time. they’re brothers, they mean the world to one another, and will protect one another at all costs.

though it never affected him much when he was on med-lev, as they have technology to suppress and treat such things, shiro is chronically ill. in the undercity with none of the treatment he once had, he is faced with the symptoms for the first time in his life. the disease is one which affects his muscle function, causing them to tense and tighten severely to the point of pain and even difficulty moving the affected part of his body. some days it’s manageable and others he can’t really leave his bed.

overall, shiro remains fairly naive and idealistic compared to most others residing in the undercity  —  he doesn’t believe that everyone down there is terrible and he often steps in to help others, strangers or not. it’s something dox continues to give him shit for, though it never convinces him to stop.

this is an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE from shiro’s main undercity verse, an offshoot in a different direction which eventually meets with ghost’s ‘inheritance’ verse for dox.

initial events unfold the same, but this verse diverges in shiro being successfully manipulated by 5liip after meeting him face to face in the undercity. shiro agrees to join the gang {black bracket}, believing the things that 5liip tells him about it not being what dox has told him and accepting the help the gang leader says it will provide him.

this ruins the relationship between shiro and dox, the latter of whom hates gangs more than anything else. shiro is kicked out of dox’s home.

5liip replaces the prosthetic dox made for shiro which a much higher quality one.

shiro undergoes training to improve his fighting skills and he begins accompanying 5liip on jobs once he’s shown to be talented.

originally, he’s still little more than a tool to eventually bring dox to 5liip, to put dox in charge of the gang (shiro still, of course, completely unaware of this fact). he proves himself to be useful as much more than his, however, and ends up holding the interest of the gang’s leader.

5liip enforces the beliefs shiro gained from growing up on an upper level, that the people of the undercity (those unaffiliated with the {black bracket} gang, at least) are awful and undeserving of sympathy. this makes it easier to mold him into a perfect soldier.

shiro climbs through the gang’s ranks quickly, eventually becoming something of a third in command. 

eventually, shiro becomes a legitimately feared figure, as he’s a frighteningly talented fighter, has become quite ruthless, and, completely trusting in his leader, does whatever 5liip asks of him.

when 5liip dies and passes on leadership to dox, shiro is apprehensive at first. he’s been angry with dox for years for being kicked out and abandoned over one decision, and he’s grieving over the loss of someone who had been so important to him. he still trusts 5liip, however, and thus accepts dox as the new leader of the gang regardless of how he feels about the guy.

it takes time, but the two do make up and start to improve their relationship again.

dox makes shiro his second, but relegates him more to duties around the base rather than sending him on any jobs that require violence, not liking what 5liip has effectively turned him into.

this is frustrating to shiro, who feels he’s far more useful in the field, but he does as he’s told regardless.

@grimesucker​ sent:  “ you didn’t outgrow your misery , you grew into it ” ,,,, samsara @ shiro ,,,,

cursed suggestion   ☆☆   accepting!!

  drawn to a pause by the words, shiro doesn’t look up from the files he’s been organizing for dox’s-- samsara’s-- office. the hell is THAT supposed to mean, that he grew into his misery? that it never left him and instead he... adapted and changed to fit into it? that in the misery of being sent from his home to the TRASHCAN of the city, he slowly became one of the very slumrats he’d been forced to join in the undercity?

  ---actually, as weird as the statement of dox’s is, it’s... not inaccurate. even beyond the more obvious example of it, there was the misery of dox ABANDONING him that had resulted in him putting his everything into  { black bracket }. that had molded him further, made him into who he is NOW. and it had eventually led to him and dox reconciling, to running the gang together.

his misery is still there, but now more of a WEAPON than a WEAKNESS.

     “ guess so, ”  he finally replies, exhaling a low breath that sounds somewhat like a chuckle. adjusting the stack of papers, shiro then turns to the other, the small bit of a smile at his lips rather wry.  “ but i think the same could be said of YOU. ”

wow hey guys, remember me?

grimesucker‌.

it’s with a fluid, albeit LAZY action that the shaman sits up, his floating flora coming to circle around his head like an earthen halo. as the werewolf provides DENIAL, a slow smirk begins to overtake dox’s mouth. YEAH, he doesn’t believe shiro for a SECOND—

but he doesn’t FAULT the kid ; SHIT, part of the reason he’d sent SHIRO on the errand was so he COULD swing into the bakery - he’s earned some GOOD KARMA, & if his good karma is the baker’s son, than dox will cheer him on. —reaching to take the coltsfoot from where it’d been dropped to his lap in his rise, the shaman pushes further to his feet, free hand landing on the wolf’s head & giving a slight RUFFLE to the fur ; 

                                                                     “ thanks, romeo. ”

& across the space he moves, bare feet padding across hardwood flooring ; sunlight illuminates the inside of the cabin, motes dust caught in the rays of light that speckle the floor through dirtied glass windows—not in FRAMES, simply SET into the wood & clay walls.

above the clay & copper appliance that serves as KITCHEN SINK does he go to hang the herbs amid a collection of various others ; after letting it SETTLE for a few days in the glow of the sunlight, he’ll store half for medicinal purposes later on, & SMOKE the rest.

—after tying the bundle to the cord from which his other herbs hang, dox turns to shiro & drops to a squatting position in order to better meet the werewolf face-to-face, teetering mildly from side to side in INSPECTION ;

                                                            “ you made it in & out okay ?”

there’s been TROUBLE in the woods lately, & while dox never lets shiro leave without a DEFENSIVE ward strung around his neck, it could be said that he’s a little OVER-PROTECTIVE of the kid.

  another huff, this one something more along the lines of EXASPERATED at the dumb nickname, shiro gestures with his head to insinuate a rolling of eyes. he doesn’t, however, shove dox’s hand away from the brief affectionate gesture. moving along behind the shaman, tail swaying behind him, he watches the herbs be set to hang, gaze following when dox drops to his eye level.

     ‘ yeah. i didn’t even SEE anyone or anything that far out in the forest. ’

this is where he pauses for a beat, brow furrowing some at the prompt about his trip bringing back some of the things about it which had... bothered him a bit. for a few moments, shiro doesn’t say anything more, even glances AWAY, trying to decide how to word his observations. another beat, and he shifts  ---  where previously an abnormally large white wolf stood now sits a semi-gangly seventeen-year-old with white hair.

“ but it’s QUIET out there, dox. weirdly quiet. ”  grey eyes meet dox’s gaze once more, uncertainty clear across the boy’s face.  “ it feels like something’s wrong, but i don’t know what. i couldn’t even smell anything out of the ordinary. ”