| Backstory: Miu and Dale Harper; Ooh boy this is a long'un. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 21 2016, 10:36 AM (454 Views) | |
| Goldwind | Oct 21 2016, 10:36 AM Post #1 |
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Miu Harper is a 22 year old human girl, from a colony far away from The Frontier. In her teens, Miu was pretty small, standing at only 5,1 with a small, petite build. But, due to events that unfolded in the last year, she now stands at 5,6 - with a larger, athletic build and very long blonde hair. Her eyes are blue, but sometimes can be seen with a red hue, or appear wild and wolfen. she grew up on a small agricultural colony on the fringes of USCM space, close to Andromedan territory. The planet had been hit pretty hard by the first Andromedan-USCM war, and though it had many years to recover - the cracks were still evident. Planetary wealth was relatively low, though luckily Miu's family were fairly well off. Her mother tragically died during childbirth, causing Miu to be an only child raised alone by her Father, Dale. It's easy to see Miu got her good genes from her parents, Dale stood at nearly 6 feet with a strong, athletic build and rugged facial features. In his late forties, the people of the town fawned over her dad, sometimes to her embarrassment, but he never once took another wife. Her mother Miu had only seen in pictures, but she too was an example of picturesque beauty, and it was partly due to this and their charitable attitude that their family was well-liked within the community. At the time, Dale was a senior police officer, thankfully securing him enough to comfortably raise her without the threat of homelessness or poverty. He quit the force when his paternity leave came to an end, preferring to raise Miu in a safer environment and secure a job with a little more available free time. In his free time, Dale had worked on the family's car - managing to keep it running for much of his adult life - and decided to transfer those skills over and open an Auto shop on the planet. Agricultural fringe worlds frequently lacked a readily available source of hover-vehicles, so traditional wheeled cars were common, and the infrastructure to run them available and well maintained. Dale's shop saw good, steady business, and it provided more than enough for the two to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle during their time on planet. Miu was able to attend a decent inner-city school, and Dale purchased a ranch and workshop for them to live in a short ways into the country. Miu inherited Dale's love for cars and anything mechanical, and as she grew up spent more and more time helping her father in the shop, and at home in the garage. This was also reflected in her schooling, as she chose mechanics and robotics as her two main areas of study. Miu formed a very close bond with her father, as they spent a vast majority of their free time working together. The pair purchased two classic cars, converting them into stock cars for the local races where both of them proved successful as a racing team. While the two weren't quite world champions, they were good racers, and this only made them more well known locally. As a result of this Miu had a rich social life, with a circle of inner-city friends that she frequently attended parties or bars with, and a circle of her countryside friends who she spent more personal time with growing up. She had a fair few admirers, but the people of the town knew the story surrounding her family and most of them were fairly apprehensive of getting on her father's bad side, treating her with respect for the most part. Her father frequently did favours and repairs for people in the town free of charge, and quickly the auto shop became well known and saw frequent visits by locals, be it just for a chat or to get something fixed. It brought the community together, and this was an integral part of Miu's growing up that still sticks with her today - a sense of community is an important thing to her. In his spare time, Dale also took Miu out shooting, and taught her all about the operation and maintenance of firearms. She did some limited gunsmithing with her father, and he gave her his old police pistol to shoot with. To this day, the pistol remains one of her cherished possessions, though she no longer remembers where she got it. After finishing school, Dale encouraged Miu to apply for various off-planet academies throughout space. He'd noticed she had a spark for intelligence, and while she could be very naïve at times, obtained very high results in her end-of-year examinations in robotics (and near-perfect results in mechanics.) She was reluctant to, she expressed a great desire to remain home with her father as she loved the life she was living and all the people she'd grown up with. Her father agreed, but reminded her that she'd be the first in their family to go to an Academy, and that her mother would be proud of the better life she'd secured for herself. Despite her concerns, she bit the bullet and applied to over a hundred different academies across the galaxy. Typically, fringe world kids didn't make it into Academies - while the education systems there were impressive, they lacked the hyper-efficient systems the core worlds could provide. Surprisingly though, perhaps owing to her upbringing or her father's teachings, Miu was accepted just three years later into an Andromedan Academy, located near Freemind Glitch space. Understandably, Miu was beyond apprehensive, but as she packed her bags to head off on the colossal cruise vessel that would take all of the planet's hopefuls, Dale sent her an encouraging letter to keep her spirits high and her mind on track. She still has this letter, but like many of her most important belongings, remembers little of the context surrounding it apart from faded, vague memories that only bring sadness. Spoiler: click to toggle Miu's worries were set aside, as she quickly made a lot of interesting friends from other worlds during the trip. She'd never been outside her town and nearby city, letalone off-world. The advanced carrier, with it's sleek pristine interior was a source of wonder for Miu, and this was the first time she'd ever seen Hylotl, Novakid, and Avians in-person. She was fascinated, and they were too, all eager to learn something about the far-off corners of the universe that none of them had been able to visit before. The trip was scheduled to take several days, so on the ship she had plenty of time to get to know people and get acquainted with the new environment she'd inevitably be greeted with once she got off the ship. As a core-world, the planet she was heading to would be much more advanced than the one she left, there certainly wouldn't be any conventional cars around. On the fourth day of the journey, Miu awoke with a headache to the sound of alarms. Her bunk was dark, lit occasionally by a red strobe light. Upon looking around, she noticed it was empty, and aside from the sirens - everything was silent. She ventured out into the rest of the ship, but it quickly became evident nobody was around. The ship was wrecked, there was blood staining the white walls, peppered with bullet-holes. Terrified, she quietly made her way to the escape pods, only to find them all gone. Beginning to calm down, her terror was being replaced with confusion, how the hell didn't she wake up through all this? Finding a nearby terminal, she accessed it to try and figure out what was wrong, only to find herself even more confused. The alerts showed the ship was dead in the water, but the journey map showed they were way off course - in lawless space - and it had been three weeks since they'd set off. She tried to check in further, but was interrupted by the airlock behind her opening abruptly. In shock, Miu almost catapulted herself to the ground, as three armed men stepped out. The centre one, balding and bulky, spoke with a thick Russian accent as he gestured to her. "Grab the girl." Weeks later, Miu was now on the initial colony that would eventually become The Frontier. While scary at first, the man had revealed himself to be an entrepreneur simply scavenging the ship for supplies. He had no idea what happened to it, but insisted she come back and help him set up his new business venture as a thanks for saving her life. She so desperately wanted to go home, still traumatized by the whole experience, but knew better to question someone in lawless space. She agreed to run the workshop as long as the man, known only as Nikolay, promised to get her back to USCM space, to which he agreed. About a month passed on The Frontier, and it was opened to the public. New faces from across the galaxy began to show up, and despite her desire to get home she began to make some friends. The place was dangerous, but she had her father's gun and his letter to keep her strong, she was going to survive this. Despite all this optimism, the situation in town worsened in the wake of a new threat, and when Nikolay was murdered while receiving medical attention at the clinic, Miu took matters into her own hands. She stole his ship, and began making her way back home. Miu doesn't know what happened on the trip. She doesn't know how far she got, or even that the journey took place. In-fact, everything from this point previous - her entire life with her father, her friends, is a collection of fuzzy memories that are difficult to piece together. Big, important events stand out, more concrete memories of a happier past, but many of the names and faces of people she once knew are little more than a blur. Miu remembers living somewhere nice, somewhere rural, with her father. She knows she had friends, that she used to race and party, and work on cars. She remembers her studies. She knows what her dad looks like, but not his name, and she remembers nothing of the friends she once held dear. She remembers important conversations, birthdays, especially happy or sad times, but they all exist eerily without context, and without a focal point to base them around. These memories have all slowly started to resurface, getting clearer and more numerous as time goes on. The earliest concrete memory she has is waking up, in a cold and damp stone room lit by torches. At the time, she had no idea who she was, or how she had gotten there. She felt weak, and any attempt to recall her past was met with physical pain. The nameless girl tried to sit up on the raised stone bed she was lain, but she was heavy - why? She was wearing a full suit of armour, bronze plate with red regalia and a cloak. Of course she was, she was a warrior. How could she have been so silly, how could she forget? These thoughts raced through her mind as she shakily got down from the bed. A glance into a pool of water showed her blood red eyes through the full-face helmet she wore. She always had red eyes, didn't she? Before she could ponder it any more, a man wearing similar armour entered the room, he wore a much more noble helmet, and he looked older - wiser. Miu remembers little more than this, but knows it was the day she became what's known as a Husk. Husks are individuals infected with an advanced Titan parasite, that feeds off of the host's blood to provide potential immortality. At a cost, the host has to replenish their blood supplies regularly, or face decaying to the point of mindlessness. The parasite is also the source of her chronic Amnesia, the shoddy attempt at Titan mind control consistently causing her to lose memories, with only the ones she holds most dear safe from the potential to forget anything if she doesn't get access to enough blood. Throughout her first months as a Husk, Miu forgot much of her past, struggling to get access to enough blood to keep her memories safe. As she got better, the process changed her - she became callous and uncaring, having killed many people unjustly to obtain enough blood to survive. She wasn't the innocent young girl she was months prior, all she knew and all she remembered was killing, and psychologically that had catastrophic effects. Shades of her personality from that time are still present in Miu today. While regaining some of her memories, and finding a more stable lifestyle have allowed her to readjust and become much more secure, she is still liable to freak bouts of ruthlessness and cruelty, that she feels deeply ashamed of afterwards. The psychological damage caused by this and the loss of her memories have led her to suffer from terrible nightmares, hallucinations and 'flashbacks' that often revolve around a shadow of a memory, or a manifestation of guilt. Sometimes, these hallucinations and manifestations can lead her astray. Months after her return to The Frontier, the only place she remembered, she saw a hallucination that manifested itself in the form of her father. Hearing him call out her name sparked a brief reminder of a past she'd completely forgotten - and she foolishly followed the figure in the belief it was real. It led her outside the then-town's boundary, into the dangerous territory that is the vast forests. The figure soon disappeared, much to Miu's confusion and disappointment, but by then she was already totally lost. Defeated and upset, she curled up by a nearby rock and fell asleep for a long, long time. This time she woke up feeling very different indeed. Miu had a tendency to fall into deep, sometimes days-long sleeps, but this one wasn't like the others. Her watch told her it had been a month - and she knew she couldn't possibly have been asleep for that long without being killed. Next to her was a box filled with some food and water, and directions back to the town, and she knew she hadn't brought those with her. The thought of someone being there while she slept, keeping her alive, terrified her, especially considering how she felt. She trudged back to town, moping and afraid. In the weeks afterwards, Miu noticed a strange peculiarity. Sometimes, when she slept, she would find herself waking up the next day in the very same spot in the forest. She ached like hell every time, sometimes so much so she couldn't stand up until hours had passed. Her hair would always be a mess, her clothes torn and her body covered in dirt and scrapes, especially under her fingernails. As time went on, she'd find herself waking up in stranger places each time, with no memory of how she got there or what she was doing at night. Gradually, the occurrences got less frequent, and she passed them off as sleepwalking or some other strange result of her Husk affliction. Reintegrating into society again was difficult, and she took a little while to adjust for the third time. She started to visit nearby space stations, making a network of friends that she enjoyed hanging out with, her psychological state beginning to heal. This continued until another peculiarity arose - sometimes, when she stayed with a friend for the night, she'd wake up in that forest again. After not hearing from a few friends a while after, she began to discover the ones she was staying with were disappearing. Understandably, this terrified Miu, and she went into isolation for a while, developing a paranoia that reignited her mental issues, and caused the irregular sleepwalking to become daily. It wasn't long afterwards through meeting another like her, that Miu learned she was a Lycan. In the nights, she would turn into a beast composed partly of the DNA of a human and partly of the DNA of a wolf, a hybrid that killed indiscriminately and viciously. She had been the reason her friends went missing, having brutally killed them on the nights she turned - and this was difficult for her to come to terms with. Much of what she knew now was fear, fear of others and fear of herself, fear of being taken again and fear of what tricks her mind would play on her, fears of who she might kill by accident and who she would have to kill to stay alive. For a long time, she found it difficult to live like this, or engage socially much at all. However, her story is not all doom and gloom. Miu had met another Lycan, named Hecate, who helped her to understand and come to terms with both of her afflictions. The two became fast friends, and Hecate helped her to learn to control when she turned. Once or twice, he even subdued her when she did. Hecate generously gave her a portion of a large sum of money he inherited from a friend, allowing the both of them to at least live a lavish lifestyle as some comfort to both their problems. As time went on, the two got closer and closer. Finally feeling like she had someone who cared for her again, Miu concentrated on restoring her mental health and piecing together the happy memories that had begun to trickle back. Now, she has some knowledge of her previous life before the day she awoke as a husk. Some of what she's been through will never heal, and she still experiences occasional nightmares and hallucinations that Hecate lovingly attends to and helps her get through, but she is now to the point where she can live with relative normality. Having forgotten a lot of common knowledge, Miu can appear naive and to put it bluntly, stupid, but she's rapidly re-learning what she's missing - as well as important details of her past. Miu still woefully misses her father, and her friends. She worries what might have happened having been gone for so long, but is determined that one day she will remember where she once lived and will be reunited with them. By pushing back the terrible memories of the times she spent killing, she's managed to regain some of the innocence that characterised her personality before the tragic events that befell her, and hopes she would be able to live happily with them if she could just bring them to The Frontier. More recently, she's fulfilled her childhood dream of opening up an Autoshop just like her father's, and has fixed up an old Forosa Pheonix - a 3150's brand of muscle car, that she calls her own. She hopes to use this shop to give back to the community of people she terrorized in her wolfen and husk forms for so long (though many of them do not know it) by offering her services as a gunsmith, mechanic and metalworker completely free of charge. In addition to this, Miu has used her car to take people on countless supply runs into the wilds to look for gear to repair the decaying town with, her considerable driving skill helping to overcome raider attacks, terrible weather, adverse terrain and ferocious wildlife. Also important to Miu is her dog, which she recently domesticated from the wild. The dog isn't actually a dog, but a Maned Wolf, and it's presumed her relation with wolves is the reason it stays so loyal to her. It stands almost as tall as her, and possesses a terrifying bark that she only seems to find adorable. She named the dog Dale, the name bears some significance to her - she knows it's important but can't quite place why it makes her feel so strange when she says it. Along with this, Miu hopes to find a Fabbit and a Lilodon to take as pets, and fears another encounter with Tumbleteeth. Miu's past has been far from a bright one, but for the time being, Miu is happy, and on the path to redemption for the acts she's committed. |
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| Goldwind | Oct 21 2016, 10:36 AM Post #2 |
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Ninnybot
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Dale Harper is a 47 year old male originating from a far-off colony in USCM space. The father of Miu, Dale stands at almost 6 feet tall and has a strong, rugged build that has gained him the affection of many budding women over his time, though he always refuses. Born in 3141 during the first USCM-Andromedan war, Dale grew up familiar with poverty and hardship. Dale's father, Michael, had been conscripted into the Marines shortly before he was born, and while he wrote often the role of raising Dale was primarily left to his mother, Andrea, until the end of the War. Andrea struggled to make ends meet, the colony was rapidly nearing the frontlines as Andromeda pushed further into USCM space, and regular bombings had damaged the massive city they lived in. To escape, Andrea moved out to the countryside with Dale, raising him in a small town just outside the city. Michael returned when Dale was 4, and the two worked hard to make their circumstances better and to rebuild everything that was lost during the crisis. Michael worked in construction, helping to rebuild the heavily damaged nearby city, and Andrea as a relief officer that helped provide for poorer families who lost everything. The war was crippling to the community, with many household's husbands, eldest sons and fathers missing or killed in the conflict, and for a long time money and commodities like electricity and running water were difficult to come by. Through great effort, Dale's parents worked hard enough to be able to afford to put him in school. His class was small, allowing him to focus on his studies - despite some flunking and rowdy behaviour, he did fairly well in school, and decided in his teen years he wanted to train to be a police officer. Crime was rampant in the impoverished region, and the local stations had put out a call urgently requesting people to sign up. While his mother didn't approve of the dangerous job, Dale's father encouraged him to take it, proud his son was working to better the community just as he had. at 19, Dale was a fully qualified police officer. He ran a local round in his neighbourhood, and soon became well known and liked within the community. A year after joining the force, an urgent dispatch was put out - a report of shots fired and a hostage taken at a local grocer's in the centre of town, opposite the town bank. Dale had always exceeded in his pursuit driving, and ended up being first on the scene. The area seemed quiet, and instead of waiting for backup like he should have, Dale took the initiative and decided to search the building himself. He'd always been brave, his mother had labelled it as foolhardy, but it hadn't failed him up until then. Reaching deeper into the building, Dale came across two masked men holding what looked like the grocer, who had a bag over her head. She was silent, but the two were talking about executing her and getting out of there. Dale weighed up his options, and snuck as close as he could. In a risky move, he tackled the closest gunman, and engaged them both in a fistfight. Dale managed to restrain and handcuff both men, but not before being shot in the leg. Despite the pain, Dale took the bag away from the grocer, and immediately noticed she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Some would consider it unprofessional, or ludicrous, to have those thoughts whilst having been shot and in the presence of two restrained gunmen, but that sums up dale's character eloquently. Perhaps because of this, Dale grimaced through the pain, and dragged the two men outside, the untied woman helping to support him. Outside he was greeted by a crowd of officers and onlookers, who cheered his success. He was given an award for bravery by the chief of police, and across the small, rural town he was now practically a celebrity. As for the woman he saved - she visited him regularly while he was recovering in hospital, and the two found they shared a lot in common. After dating for a couple of years, Dale married her, and she took the name Maria Harper. The two shared a happy, picturesque marriage that the community adored. Dale and Maria moved into the city that his parents had once lived during the war, buying a large house to enjoy their life in. They bought out a grocers, and Maria expanded her business, while Dale moved up the ranks in the force until he was a senior officer, one of the youngest there. On their third anniversary, the two agreed that something was missing from their lives, and they decided that they would try for a baby. Both of dale's parents had died earlier in the year, and while he was still reeling from the loss, he was optimistic at taking his relationship with Maria to the next level. Tragically, Maria didn't make it through childbirth. A rare occurance, and one that came entirely out of the blue, absolutely devastated Dale and destroyed a lot of the optimism he had for the world. The baby had survived however, and seeing it was all he had left in the world, he dedicated himself to making sure she had the best upbringing possible, in memory of her mother. He named her Miu, and gave up his job on the police force to have more time available to see to her. Moving back to the country, Dale set up an auto shop to repair people's cars and equipment. The community there still remembered him, and he counted on their support to help him in the mammoth task of raising a daughter alone in what was still an unstable, dangerous climate. To his surprise, Miu took a liking to his work in the shop, and as she grew older joined him in working on cars and equipment. The two grew very close, and Miu made a lot of friends in the area, Dale was extremely proud of how outgoing and intelligent she was. Dale enrolled Miu in an inner-city school, so she would get the best possible education around, he'd noticed she had a spark, and as she performed better and better throughout her school years, he only grew prouder. Miu made a lot of city friends too, and in her late teens had a bustling social life too. Dale had bought a couple of old cars that the two had been fixing up on the side, and finally now Miu was old enough that they could both start a racing team to compete in the local derbies. They competed with success, and quickly found themselves becoming popular in the community again due to that and the charity jobs Dale did in his free time. at 21, Miu was accepted into a high-class Andromedan Academy, and Dale pushed her to accept the offer. He knew his daughter loved her life at home, and that she was apprehensive, but he maintained the stance that it would make Maria proud and offer her an opportunity she couldn't refuse - not many kids from these kind of worlds had that sort of chance. She begrudgingly accepted, and he sent her off with a note to keep her on track, and the promise that she would write back frequently. Dale felt pretty empty and alone once Miu had left. He was so used to having the company that working in the shop on his own felt alien and surreal. Friends came around to chat in the shop, and while he still gave off his regained air of optimism and cheer, inside he felt a little less than he was. But, this was part of parenting, and just like she would be battling her homesickness, he had to go against it too. A month passed, and he hadn't heard anything from her - he was sure she was just wrapped up in all kinds of exciting experiences, but he began to worry. Two months after Miu left home, Dale received a letter from Andromedan High Command. Spoiler: click to toggle Understandably, Dale was yet again devastated by the news, and was inconsolable for weeks. Community members, friends and acquaintances alike all gathered at the auto shop to lay flowers for the beloved Miu, offering money and support to pledge to Dale, whom he and his family meant so much to the people of the town. No amount of flowers or money could bring back what he'd lost, and it took months before he was able to come to terms with what had happened. He prayed every night for Miu's safe return, for Andromedan authorities to find her and bring her home, until he received another letter in the post - shortly after some more terrible news. Spoiler: click to toggle Dale found it difficult to drum up much enthusiasm for anything anymore. He grit his teeth and signed up for training, promising that he was doing it for Maria, and for Miu, and that one day he would find her, with the Andromedans or Against them. He was posted to a far-off world in the middle of lawless space, much to his surprise, and told that he was to be part of an invasion force that would wipe out the population - who the USCM had deemed were a conglomerate of criminals who the Andromedans protected out of fear the USCM would expose them. The planet, of course, was Vethus-2. Fighting was fierce, large gains were made in the opening months, with the invasion force almost pushing up to the very town Miu was in, currently fighting her waning memory and husk affliction. When Andromedan defence was redoubled and reorganised, this initial success was immediately followed by terrible losses. By the end of the campaign, everyone was weary and all but one of their bases had been lost. Their chain of command was in shambles, and a man who had once been only a base commander was now the leader of the entire invasion force. Without any orders from High Command, the commander made a difficult choice, and gave the order to surrender to Andromeda, accompanied by a speech. Spoiler: click to toggle Dale happily obliged - prepared to finally throw down his weapons and sit in a cell, anything was better than what he had to live with right now. He was taken as a Prisoner of War and brought aboard The Dauntless, where he stayed for a few weeks. When The Dauntless was shot down by the immense Raider group besieging Vethus-2, Dale managed to make it to an escape pod and reach the ground. The last known information of Private Dale Harper was a distress signal from Airman Sky Valborn, where he can be heard being given a rifle, fighting alongside Andromedan survivors to defend from an advancing group of Raiders. |
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| williamcll | Oct 21 2016, 11:06 AM Post #3 |
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Maxie/Lankay/Maynes
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I imagine a tragic ending where Dale mercy kills Miu to spare her the life of a husk.![]() ![]() (source) |
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| Goldwind | Oct 21 2016, 06:36 PM Post #4 |
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Ninnybot
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pls I cant make it any more sad ;-; |
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| Nomster | Oct 21 2016, 06:37 PM Post #5 |
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The lazy artist
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Much sad very cri |
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| Citali | Oct 21 2016, 08:36 PM Post #6 |
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Frontier Celebrity
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Hi, Citali here! This. This story. This whole thing is extremely, extremely sad, and you wound me. It's excellent, but . . . ow . . . |
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| williamcll | Oct 22 2016, 09:44 AM Post #7 |
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Maxie/Lankay/Maynes
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Or Miu becomes the Lord of husks and takes over the Frontier. |
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| AFreshPairOfEyes | Oct 22 2016, 09:47 AM Post #8 |
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The day she stops smiling is the day we remember her smile.
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Miu will overthrow that one Husk Titan that controls the Fallen. |
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| williamcll | Oct 22 2016, 10:40 AM Post #9 |
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Maxie/Lankay/Maynes
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Yes, that would be amazing! Going full nosferatu right now! |
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