Back on my Fire Emblem Awakening AU bullshit, this time with a Gundam AU????? Bc why not, I guess (warning: I am a VERY casual Gundam/mech enjoyer, so the lore is shaky at best).
In no particular order, in some very half-formed thoughts:
So the obvious first question is why a Gundam AU, and like idk, the series so often focuses on the impact of war, esp on a human level, and also often features young folks in war like!! That’s Fire Emblem!!!
For how Ylisse (the continent) translates -- a grouping of three colony stations that form a larger colony (Ylisse - Plegia - Ferox) that are run by their own governments that are supposed to work together as each station is designed to produce a resource necessary for life in the colony (water, food, electricity???)
Plegia is coordinating an attack to take over Ylisse, using a secret weapon they've been creating for decades: GRiMA. (Not sure what that stands for, but obv it's a mech). Built specifically to be piloted by a specific child (Robin) -- perhaps their DNA is incorporated into the mech??? (Bc dubious science is necessary)
Robin (F!Robin or M!Robin, you choose) found floating in a space suit near Colony Ylisse -- found by the Shepherds organization, which helps organize travel between colonies. They assume Robin is a citizen of Colony Ylisse since they were found nearby, but when they bring them to the medic bay, they find no record of them. When Robin wakes up, they also have no memory and they can't even remember their name.
Not knowing what to do with Robin, Chrom offers to look after them and show them around. Robin joins on the work day to try and jog their memory. Nothing comes up, but is really knowledgable about the machinery the Shepherds are working on. They're short staff that day, so Robin agrees to help out.
When working, Robin sees a machine that catches their eye (Chrom's mech, named Falchion bc duh), then notices another one being worked on that isn't yet complete: ROBiN (my subtlety is mighty indeed)
Chrom notes that the mechs are to make transporting resources between colonies easier? Repairing the colonies easier?
Robin recognizes pieces of the mech/understands how it works, which is pretty odd since it's new tech!
The mechs designed by following blueprints Chrom's dad had (based on designs he took from Plegia, but we don't know this yet at this point in the story). Initially designed as a war machine, but Emmeryn had Colony Ylisse engineers repurpose the design to be more peaceful/useful?
Plegia attacks Colony Ylisse in mechs! The colonies aren't fitted with any exterior guns, so Chrom has to use Falchion to go out on his own. Chrom is doing okay, but is only one person. Robin says they can help, but Chrom's second in command (Frederick) doesn't trust them to operate new tech. Robin convinces Frederick to let them join so they can help, and Frederick reluctantly agrees (knows very little about the machine).
During the fight, the mech Frederick and Robin are in gets hit pretty hard, and Frederick ends up getting knocked out, so Robin has to take over and is able to use the mech well. Alongside Chrom (and with the Shepherds sending escape pods towards Plegia's mechs as projectiles? IDK, they help somehow) they fight off Plegia.
Robin gets their name from the mech they pilot -- opportunity to explore their identity using the mechs (GRiMA & ROBiN) as a narrative device?
Much else is the same plot wise, I imagine (for the first part of Awakening, at least -- no clue how the children would come in)
Although, with each colony stations dependant on the other, warring with the other colony stations could have opportunity for commentary on the price of greed or the threat of individualism? Mutually assured destruction? IDK it's a Gundam AU, there's gotta be some representations on the Horrors of War
For some added angst: Robin's sibling (F!Robin or M!Robin, depending on your preference) is forced to pilot GRiMA in Robin's absence (perhaps their sibling helped them escape Plegia but was unable to get away themselves?).
That's it for now, but feel free to add. I won't be writing this (too many ongoing long fics), but would love to read it if this flavour of AU strikes anyone's creative fancy.
If I had a nickel for everytime Charles Leclerc's race was ruined to secure his teammates win I would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it is fucking embarrassing Ferrari get it together.
I was joking about them having Liz apologize to Finn for her dad stealing his girl but I see that's exactly what the writers did today. Wow. Liz was a teen at the time and just found out her parents did all kinds of unethical bs to mess with her memory but she has to cry on Finn's behalf?
For the girl who wrote fanfiction in middle school <3
Fun facts about Lex: I started writing in 4th grade. It started with a little short story about twin girls finding an alien in their treehouse. Very ET inspired (it was my favorite movie at the time). I quickly became obsessed with writing short stories featuring the things I loved. Creating characters based off of myself and people I knew and people I wish I did.
In middle school, my oldest sister introduced me to Wattpad. From there, I was unstoppable. My first fanfiction was a creepypasta AU about Jeff and Jane the Killer (I was going through a phase, okay). I then moved into writing about: Dan and Phil. The Emo bands I was obsessed with. The anime Black Butler. The Walking Dead. I was HEAVY in the adopted by space. No one got sold to one direction, but I was def writing about foster care and orphans when I had no clue about any of the logistics and didn’t handle the topics with even a little bit of grace.
In 10th grade, I stepped away from fanfic. Decided I was going to write fiction based loosely on the topics I’d written about using real life figures. I spent countless hours researching mental illnesses, addiction, how the foster care system actually works, pregnancy, and a whole bunch of other topics that now float in my head and worry people when I bring up not so fun facts. I’m probably on a list somewhere.
I was in 11th grade when the world shut down. I worked for weeks to create an outline for a book using characters I’d created during my fanfiction days. I wrote a rough draft, mostly. And then I scrapped it and started again. And again. And again. Because it wasn’t perfect. Something that I wasn’t going to show anyone ever (because it was deeply embarrassing for me to be perceived that way) wasn’t good enough for viewers that simply didn’t exist. I worked on this since I was sitting in Healthcare Technology class in 11th grade, and suddenly I was a cosmetology school graduate no longer interested in being a doctor or a nurse working on the same thing that had me stumped for literal years.
I dipped my toes back into fanfiction in 2023. Started writing another The Walking Dead fanfiction, but flew a little too close to the sun with a piece on the ENTIRE series. Sometimes, when I rewatch, I continue writing it. I’m not sure if that will ever be finished, or if it’ll see the light of day.
At the end of 2023, my fiancée bought me a switch for Christmas. I started playing animal crossing and they went “you’d probably really like stardew valley”. Spoiler alter: I really do not like playing Stardew on the switch. Idk why but my brain didn’t grasp the mechanics. I didn’t touch it until the end of 2024 on my MacBook. I was immediately obsessed with the concept. Moving from your life in the city for a new venture. Magic. All of the people and places and things to do. Shane was mean to me one time and I was like 👀okay👀.
The Valley was born in December of 2024. I wrote five chapters, hated it, and restarted. Since then, I’ve written over 150,000 words and created this entire universe in my head. I was never going to share it. Not until that same fiancée told me I should post on AO3. I revived my old accounts both there and on here, and published after I had like… ten chapters written? If I didn’t do that, I’m sure I wouldn’t be as far as I am with it today.
It was hard for me to finish writing things for a very long time. I dealt with at times debilitating unmediated depression and anxiety, accompanied by a verbally and emotionally abusive home life. Motivation to write left as soon as it came most of the time. Left with constant thoughts of silly little stories with silly little characters that just wouldn’t put itself onto a page. There was this mind block, kind of.
You being here, reading my silly little stories has helped me to do what I love again. So did Zoloft, but that’s not as heartfelt.
It’s really scary for me to share the things I write. Like I’m doing something wrong. I write a lot of angst and feelings and heavy topics I haven’t personally gone through, but still have things I want to put on a page about. It’s not as scary knowing that there are people writing the same things as me in their own way.
Anyway, there’s a point to this I promise. I’m never going to finish this, but for the girl who wrote this fanfiction in middle school, I wanted to drop the first chapter of that book I’ll never finish. I won’t tell you what it was called on Wattpad (it’s unpublished, anyway), and it doesn’t have a name anymore. But, here it is if you’re interested. You can probably guess there are major trigger warnings if you’ve ever read anything I’ve written:
TW: drug use and addiction, mentions of child abuse and neglect, mentions of minors having sex, mentions of physical violence and assault
chapter one: growing sideways
She’s always been lonely. Lonely just didn’t feel like the right word to use. Lonely meant that she was alone, which she most definitely was not. She always had her brother just down the hall, watching over her.. Keeping her safe. Yet that feeling of loneliness always lingered. She knew exactly what it was, exactly why she felt so utterly alone in the universe even when she was surrounded by a loving family.
That loving family wasn’t her own.
Her mom and dad didn’t love her. Parents who loved their children didn’t abuse them and abandon them. No one who was loved by their parents carried the scars inflicted on them before the age of ten. They were never forcibly taken from their home and placed in foster home after foster home. They stayed safe under their parents' care until the age of eighteen, only to be hesitantly let go for college. They always had a warm bed and homemade meal to come home to, arms open for comfort and care. She didn’t get that privilege.
She just had to watch in agony as everyone else around her was loved wholeheartedly by their parents.
This loneliness was cold and ugly. An isolating feeling perpetuated by having to watch everyone else be loved and cared for by the people who were supposed to do that. A loneliness accompanied by a gut-wrenching need for love and affection. Something that was never fulfilled. Something that would never be fulfilled.
Sure she had her brother who loved her, but that love wasn’t enough. That love was petty arguments forgotten just minutes later. A love that had no true emotional connection. It was forced. Of course it was. He was her protector, but only because he had to be. Anthony was emotionally unavailable to his sister. It had always been that way. Opening up meant that everything was real. The horrors were true and not just some story made up in his mind because of mental illness induced hallucinations. So, he stood off to the sidelines and made sure no one hurt the princess of the land—her knight in shining armor.
Zanna was desperate. Desperate for someone to love her. For someone to fix her.
That’s where he came in. The boy who was going to make it all better—he just didn’t know it yet. This wasn’t some love story. One of those where the boy saves the girl from herself, makes her feel loved and important and needed. Quite the opposite, actually. They were two teenagers, encapsulated in a sex-crazed affair, spending their nights in dank alleyways and at house parties they most certainly weren’t supposed to be at. He supplied her with the one thing that made everything better—drugs.
She was left in an incoherent daze, mind fogged in a state of ecstasy caused by white lines of powder and pharmaceuticals. Now, she was too high to remember how lonely she was. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. She was going to be just another statistic, probably going to overdose before she turned twenty one just so she could forget. It was easier this way.
Instead of being alone, she was accompanied by a baggy of illegal substances hidden away in the zipper pocket of her handbag, tucked away in her jewelry box, and stuffed between her mattress. At first it was fun. Fun to be energized. Fun to be less anxious. Fun to forget. Everything bad about her was suddenly gone after taking those pills or snorting a line. Suddenly, she was better—for a little while, at least.
Soon, that fun started to fade. The lines between sober and high began to blur. She needed to be high. She needed to keep swallowing pills. She needed to find a way to lay out those little lines and take a quick huff. She needed it. She needed it. She needed it. It became a necessity to be able to live. Without the drugs, she was nothing.
It wasn’t fun anymore. She was left the shell of a person, once a bright and bubbly girl overtaken by the scary monster that was drug addiction. She was an addict. Now, the drugs weren’t filling the empty void of loneliness, they accompanied it. It was debilitating, leaving her sprawled out on the floor of her bedroom, barely conscious.
She was left alone with an unmarked amber prescription vial filled with OxyContin and Xanax resting in her hand, a half full baggy of Cocaine abandoned next to a book with the reminisce of a line scattered across the cover. Patchetic. This was pathetic. She was pathetic.
Zanna was lonely and empty again, dependent on something she swore she would never lay a finger on as a child. She was bound to become a statistic, of course she was. No one made it out of the system without succumbing to something society deemed them susceptible to. Dropping out of high school. Teenage pregnancy. Drug addiction. Homelessness. Mental Illness. Suicide. She was becoming exactly what everyone wanted her to be—a failure.
She had to be okay with that. There was no getting around it. The loneliness of having to watch everyone else be loved while she was thrown to the sidelines wasn’t something that could just be fixed. No one was going to love her the way that she needed to be loved. She was just going to have to supplement with drugs, sex, and alcohol. That had to be enough.
Zanna blinked slowly, trying to clear the fogginess of her vision. The carpet beneath her was becoming uncomfortable. She just needed to get up, change her clothes, and get into bed. That wasn’t supposed to be such a hard task, yet there she was struggling to push herself up. Her arms shook under the weight of the rest of her body as she abandoned the amber pill vial in her grasp, palms anchoring against the rough carpet as she forced her body into an upright position.
The room began to spin around her as she got onto her feet, gathering the orange bottle and little baggy as she stood. Zanna ignored the feeling, stumbling over towards her dresser and pulling out sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt to wear to bed. She abandoned the items in her grasp onto her bed before pulling her hair into a ponytail in preparation for getting changed.
The door opening behind the girl interrupted her from continuing her routine. Quickly, too quickly, her neck snapped around to see who was invading her privacy at such a late hour. It was only 7:53 pm.
“What do you want, Zachary,” Zanna choked out, throat raw.
The boy didn’t answer, just made sure the door clicked shut behind him before pushing his way towards the girl in the middle of the dark room.
~~~
Deep breaths. No matter how painful deep breaths were, Zanna still took them as she tried to control her breathing - an attempt to slow the terribly painful fast pace of her heart. It’ll stop, she had to remind herself. It always stopped. She was just having a panic attack.
In and out. Deep breaths, forced in through her nose and held for three excruciatingly long seconds before being let out. This was fine. Everything was fine. She was going to be okay. There was nothing she could’ve done to make it better. Nothing she did wrong to cause anything to happen. That boy made a conscious decision and she was just collateral damage.
She could still feel the way he grabbed her, forcefully pushing her against the duvet spread across her bed. The way he pressed his palm against her throat, going to whisper aggressively in her ear ‘don’t say anything’. But Anthony heard them. Of course he did, the walls were paper thin. Even if she didn’t believe it, he was going to be there for her. Always her savior. Her knight in shining armor.
The disgusting boy was pulled off of her before his hands could be shoved under her blouse, before he could call her degrading names and do whatever he pleased—because he knew that Zanna wasn’t going to stop him. He didn’t take Anthony into account. The fact that the boy would do anything to protect his sister, including beating the shit out of him in the middle of the hallway. Punch after punch laid upon him, the sound of his mother screaming as his father called the police. She just stood in the doorway, watching.
Zanna was left locked in the bathroom, heart pounding against her chest with mascara running down her face. Things were supposed to be okay this time around. At least, that's what Noah had told the twins as he dropped them off with their newest foster placement. He lied to them. Again.
It was never okay in the end. The foster system was just a fucked up mess full of people who simply did not care about anything but the societal praise they received from friends and strangers by taking in children abandoned by their biological families. She wanted this to work out. She wanted this family to be the one that finally stuck. A mom and dad who loved and cared for them and a few siblings they could get along with. That’s all she ever asked for. Much to her dismay, these people never even liked the two, they knew that.
It didn’t surprise them that when the police arrived, Zanna and Anthony were being blamed for attacking the oldest boy in the house. Being called dangerous monsters. No matter the fact that the boy attacked Zanna, and had been making unwanted sexual remarks towards her since the day they arrived. Of course, his actions would have no consequences. That’s how this scenario always worked out.
She had to listen as the mother shrieked to the police about how Anthony attacked her boy—he was a dangerous monster provoked by nothing. Her sweet boy got his nose broken for no reason. Didn’t even mention how her sweet boy tried to assault an innocent girl, how that girl was having a panic attack on the bathroom floor because this wasn’t supposed to happen.
“Ma’am, your younger son said that he attacked the teenage girl you’re currently fostering,” A police officer's monotone voice echoed through the bathroom, muffled by the wooden door separating them.
“He would never!” His mother shrieked.
Yes he would.
Soon, her shrieking turned from defending his name to the end of time to blaming Zanna. Look what she was wearing, afterall! Brown trousers that went down to her ankles and a white blouse that covered her torso and shoulders, but how dare her collarbones be exposed. She was asking for it. She was called a whore and a tease all by the woman who was supposed to care for and protect her. That was her job, her moral obligation when taking on the role of foster parent. Instead, she attacked the two siblings to defend the horrid actions committed by her baby.
She completely understood it—she created this boy and loved him since birth. He was supposedly raised ‘right’, told to keep his hands to himself and respect others. Clearly he didn’t do that, not in the home or out in the world.
Zanna was just forced to listen to the defamation of herself and her twin brother for longer than it should have gone on. There was nothing that she could do except hold her legs close to her chest and let out silent sobs. It was all he said, she said, and she was absolutely terrified of defending her own name—in her experience that never ended well. The biological children in the houses in which she stayed always seemed to be believed over anyone else. Protected and defended. They were always left to fend for themselves in unsavory situations consisting of horrid wrongdoings.
“Zanna?” A comforting voice, accompanied by the echoing of a soft knock filled the bathroom. Noah. Her social worker for the last three years—the only one who had ever stayed in his career long enough to get to know her and truly make a difference. Before him, her social worker seemed to change with the seasons. “Zanna, can we talk, hun?”
Zanna didn’t move, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The cold tile on the bathroom floor was comforting as her high began to fade, a better option than facing her problems while sobering up and realizing that she and her brother were getting kicked out of yet another foster home. Crying on the floor suddenly seemed like the most appealing thing she could ever do. So, there she stayed as Noah continued to softly knock and persuade her to open the door.
At some point, he realized she wasn’t going to do that—come out on her own. He was going to have to go in. It didn’t feel right to just go into the bathroom, yet that feeling of right or wrong didn’t matter. All of a sudden, the only thing that he cared about was getting the girl to talk. Get her side of the story and get the twins out of the house.
Noah hesitantly pushed open the wooden door, finding Zanna sat on the bathroom floor. Her legs pulled up to her chest, forehead resting on her knees. Immediately, he slid down next to the girl and waited for a moment before speaking.
“What happened, Zanna?”
Zanna didn’t answer, silence filling the small bathroom. She just wanted to be left alone, but she knew she didn’t have much time left in this house. They’d be out tonight. If they couldn’t get an emergency placement on such short notice, the twins would be separated and put into group homes. Anthony would be taken to a youth home for teenagers who have committed criminal acts—this wasn’t his first time committing a violent act against someone in a foster home. While each time it was in self defense, even just one time was too many for kids like them. Zanna would be put into a substance abuse recovery home. She was an addict after all. They would be drug tested, they would find everything in her system, and she would be forced to detox against her will.
She didn’t want to detox. There was no good reason for her to get sober.
“Where’s Anthony?” She asked, trying her hardest to avoid talking about what happened.
Noah sighed, “Talking to the officers. He’s not in trouble, promise.” Zanna just nodded, resting her head back on her knees.
Noah let her stay silent for just another moment longer before asking the dreaded question once more. “What happened, kid? I promise you’re safe now.”
Zanna hesitated.
“I was getting ready to put on my pajamas when Zachary came into my room and grabbed me.” She took a deep breath, finally recalling the events of just thirty minutes before. “He pushed me against the bed and put his hand around my neck, and started to pull up my blouse. Then, um… so then Anthony came in and pulled him off of me and punched him a few times. That’s it. We didn’t do anything wrong, Noah. I swear.”
She was pleading, desperate for him to believe her. Except she didn’t need to make him believe the account she made. Why would she be lying about that? In the three years they had worked together, the only thing Zanna ever lied about was the amount of drugs she had been using. While that was an awful thing to have to deal with regarding an, at the time, fifteen year old, wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. She did cocaine and took prescription pills, oh no. He could fix that—he’d sent and accompanied the girl to NA meetings more times than he could count, something that probably would have worked if it weren’t for their situation in foster care. She’d never lied about anything else. Zanna was honest and truthful, she would own up to her mistakes and take the consequences with grace and understanding.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Noah whispered to the girl, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I want you to do me a favor, kiddo. It’s gonna be a hard one. I want you to stop crying, because this isn’t something that you should dwell on. It’s traumatic, and something you’re gonna have to talk to your therapist about. I know that. But it isn’t worth your tears. Okay? We’re going to stand up now and wipe those tears away. I’m going to help you pack, I am going to take you and your brother to the office and we’re going to find your next family. Got it, soldier?” He asked, making Zanna giggle through her tears.
The man helped Zanna off of the bathroom floor, saluting her as she wiped the tears and mascara running down her face. She returned the gesture with a tired smile. He had a hidden talent of making Zanna feel better in any situation.
Noah escorted Zanna to her room, shielding the girl from the rest of the household as they made the short journey down the hall. They would hear the pathetic cries of the disgusting teenage boy down in the living room, being taken care of by paramedics, and the woman screaming profanity on the phone with her sister. They were never going to foster again, Zanna knew that for certain. That wasn’t her problem.
All that mattered, or needed to matter, was that Zanna and Anthony were going somewhere safe. Somewhere they would be cared for and appreciated.
