#ask miko

[mik0blue]

Rise so good frfr

I swear to god I had never got a hyperfixation in my life until I watched the show.

[mikoinajar]

Hey!!! I was reading Wrapped in Chiffon Lies all yesterday and was almost done with it when I fell asleep! I was towards the end right after Jo and Nate confess! Please humble author have mercy on me! I can't wait 6 weeks!!!! Is there any way!!! please!!

Oh gosh, I didn't think about that! So sorry! Let's see if we can figure something out over a dm :)

[mik0blue]

That’s a beautiful Blurr 🙌

Thank you! ! :D

[mikoinajar]

hi i'm here to haunt your inbox over your new masterpiece! i won't gush here because i gushed over on AO3 but in short - holy shit i loved it.

okay two questions right of the gates that my brain is burning with -

in your head, what is the backstory of mike/evan/brandon? like mike seems repulsed by evan but then......mourns him like crazy when he dies? so compelling, even as background OCs. but also fuck them fr i hate them so bad, glad they're dead

How were nate and jo separated for two years and where was Jo?

what is the Frontiers????

answer as few or as many of these as you'd like but please just know you made my brain explode with such a beautifully written AU

First of all, I'm stoked to hear you like the story! (And thank you for your comment on my fic!!!) I love being able to share something *I* had so much fun writing, and seeing others enjoy reading it is amazing :)

I’ve tried to answer you’re questions as thorough as I could, which means this is a VERY long answer, so, uh, buckle up?

So, I think the first thing you'll have to have in mind is that Jo...isn’t a fully reliable narrator, since he sees the world through his lived experiences. Which is why I'm really happy that you felt that Mike seemed repulsed by Evan, because that's how Jo interpreted it. It’s how Jo would feel.

To understand the premise of the trio’s relationship, I’ll have to do a lore dump (I'll combine your question about the Frontiers because they correlate).

I'm not sure you took note of it because it can seem like a throwaway comment, but this: "You see, it's not the Strays Jo is scared of. It’s the packs." is really important. Packs are groups of ex-military, specifically from the last defense = the military bases along the border between the US and Canada.

You could label them all as deserters, but there are some differences in *how* they deserted. Some simply left before the fighting started or close thereafter because they’d rather save themselves. But! some did, in fact, fight for the greater good before they deserted (I have more lore on this). But simply put, they were left to die on the bases, and the bitterness of this makes some of them desert and seek out packs. Others, however, joined the Frontiers.

The Frontiers were specifically military personnel from the Fort, which would become the last standing military base. They start calling themselves the Frontiers after the old world collapses and continues to protect civilians from the undead. They took in soldiers from other bases, as well as civilians, and basically made a small society. In the beginning, they do want to do what’s best for the people, but as the years pass there’s a change in leadership and provisions dwindle down to nothing. It means that bad actors start popping up. These types of people *also* join packs when the Fort collapses.

So people/soldiers start offering to provide others with food/shelter/protection for the right price (this is Jo’s lived experience. He pays the price to keep Nate and him safe). The packs uses the same concept when they meet civilians that want protections, but they are just… more sharing, so to speak (there’s some more nuance to this), but it's obviously terrible for the people who are in no position to say no, unless they want to die.

So when Jo meets the trio, he is actually meeting a pack. I hinted that both Evan and Brandon were ex-military; they were from different bases and met for the first time when they joined the same pack (that was much bigger at that point).

There are some distinct difference between them: the most important being that Brandon deserted early on because he wanted to survive/didn't want to risk his life, while Evan, on the other hand, deserted very late when it became clear that his military base would fall to the undead, and the Ministry of Defense had abandoned them. It makes him deeply cynical. At his core, Evan isn’t a bad man, but when you’re together with terrible people, you often become one yourself. Evan has lost many of his principles and who he used to be.

That's also how Mike ends up knowing Brandon and Evan - they were in the same pack.

Mike is a pretty complicated character because he has done a lot to survive. He definitely has something akin to Stockholm syndrome, but I’ll say he was in a stronger position to choose which members he wanted to be with than many other civilians in the pack. He does view Evan and Brandon very differently.

Simply put, Mike despises Brandon; Evan, on the other hand… is more complicated. As I mentioned, Evan has more good in him than Brandon does, and that’s what Mike sees and experiences. Evan treats him like an equal, though their relationship is decidedly not.

If you remember, Evan points out to Jo that while they like to share, it will be nice to have one each. That’s Evan staking his claim on Mike. He wants Mike to himself, one of the reasons being that he cares about him -in a very selfish way- but also because he sees how Brandon treats him, and is trying to shield him in his own twisted way.

Mike’s interactions with Evan is described from Jo’s narrative, so it is naturally negative. If it’d been written from Mike’s point of view, it would have been a VERY different interaction.

When Mike grieves, it is much more complicated and nuanced, in a way Jo simply can’t relate to, and so the depiction of Mike grieving is simplified. The first reason for this is that Jo paid for security out of love to keep Nate and him safe. He didn’t like the protectors, hated them more like. He has no good memories about them and is disgusted throughout. So if that’s the extent of your relationship, then you obviously wouldn’t mourn/grieve them. Secondly, Jo does, as mentioned, what he has to because he loves Nate. He points out that when Nate dies, so will he. For Jo, mourning is for when you love someone, like family and friends, and mourning so deeply must mean you loved that person the most.

For Mike, though? It isn’t inherently love he feels for Evan, though perhaps they share a deformed kind. Evan was Mike’s best protector and the only one Mike wanted. For all his faults, Evan treated Mike with care and respect (yk, sort of). Evan sees Mike as an equal, a human being worth as much as himself, though he is selfish in his demands. In some ways, Mike isn’t just grieving Evan’s death. He is also grieving his own because without Evan, Mike knows he will die.

In regards to your second question about how long Nate and Jo have been apart, I think there’s a little misunderstanding. When Jo mentions that Mallow has passed, he means that Mallow did so two years before the apocalypse began. In my canon, Nate and Jo have been apart for about four months before Nate finds him. I don’t have a clear picture of the timeline for what Jo has done prior to this, but he’d been trying to get to his family…or well, find his family :(

I hope this answers your questions :) And thank you for the ask! Please know that you can always haunt my inbox!

[mik0blue]

What are the rules for your Requests?

- No NSFW/R18

- No Proship

- Excessive Gore

- Complicated Mechas

My basic rules for now, but I’ll update them If any request makes me uncomfortable

[mik0blue]

how are you? Do you take art requests by any chance?

Hey there! I’m doing well thank you for asking! And yeah I’m accepting requests!

Feel free to ask :]

[ask-star-child]

This is mikos first drawing of mine (VERY sketchy. Not my favorite but I like the idea!)

[ask-star-child]

This is Miko’s first design! It’s also currently my favorite. This drawing is not mine, was created through picrew!