✗ ━ 「 V: There's A Madness That's Coursing Right Through Me 」 Undercity: Ii. - Blog Posts

verse tag dump.

✗ ― 「 v: dear atlas / you must endure 」 main. ✗ ― 「 v: what a beautiful day to make a break for it 」 overwatch. ✗ ― 「 v: i pray for the wicked on the weekend 」 undercity. ✗ ― 「 v: there’s a madness that’s coursing right through me 」 undercity: ii. ✗ ― 「 v: they dragged you into darkness & you came out shining 」 witch au. ✗ ― 「 v: just & loyal 」 hogwarts: i. ✗ ― 「 v: i am brave / i am bruised / i am who i’m meant to be 」 hogwarts: ii. ✗ ― 「 v: you’ll have to watch me struggle from several rooms away 」 modern.

@grimesucker​  //  5liip.  (x)

HEAD RISES as fifteen enters , a TIMELY appearance since his summons— the boy stands STIFF , 5liip notes , inspiring a slight TILT to the angle of his head in endeavor to come across as QUESTIONING , portraying personality more INQUISITIVE than REPRIMANDING.

answer soon comes regarding the member’s rigid posture , to which a soft BREATH escapes 5liip , lips spreading into small SMILE.

                              “ it’s alright . it’s not something we could have planned. ”

                                                                                                    says the man who planned it.

—it wasn’t as though he ACTIVELY pushed the two into the same space at the same time , he merely… coaxed them into the vague area , & provided enough circumstantial conditions to ensure there was nothing else to do BUT encounter one another—

a gesture of his arm , 5liip invites shiro to take a seat , to RELAX ;

                                  “ it must have been JARRING for you, to see him again.                                      i’m certain he wasn’t expecting to see you EITHER. ”

                                                                        a CERTAINTY by his OWN craft.

  having expected REPRIMAND for causing a scene, it’s both surprising and relieving when the gang leader doesn’t seem remotely bothered. in fact, he seems mildly amused, if understanding. when it sinks in that he’s not going to be punished, let alone lectured, the tenseness in shiro’s body RELAXES some and, when waved toward a seat, he accepts the invitation.

     “ it... yeah. jarring might be putting it lightly, ”  he replies, lowering into the chair in front of 5liip’s desk. hands fold in his lap and his gaze rests on them for a few moments, mind CHURNING with thoughts of this afternoon, as well as the last time he’d seen dox.

     “ the last time i saw him, he kicked me out of his life with NO WARNING. ”  and it still hurt. more so after today, after the way dox had regarded him, the things dox had said to him. when you had come to view someone as a BROTHER, you never expect them to abandon and turn on you at the drop of a hat over ONE THING. metal hand clenches into a fist in his lap, and shiro lifts his head to meet 5liip’s gaze.

     “ he might not have been expecting to see me either, but it was sure easy for him to THROW INSULTS. i’ve never felt so... i don’t know... betrayed? ---i’ve never felt like that before, and i just... i SNAPPED. ”

something which only ADDED to his emotional turmoil over the situation. control is something he’s always been able to maintain, under EVERY circumstance, no matter how strong his emotions. and yet... here he had snapped and been the first to physically attack. it’s genuinely SCARED him, left him all the more rattled by the encounter.

@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. ”

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.