xobarriers

[xobarriers]

Fic rec!!!

This is In My Sights by setulose ( @setulose ) and xobarriers ( @xobarriers )

Author Summary:

They fell silent for a moment, picking at a thread on their blanket. Frank was opening his mouth to prompt them when they finally spoke.

���Something's been attacking us.”

--

After being mortally injured in the Great War, Frank Iero wakes up to a nightmare. He’s fallen into a world populated by sharp-toothed, magical creatures called sylvans who may as well be fairies. His fear, however, melts away as he’s tended by Gerard, a small-town healer as beautiful and kind as they are freakish. The sylvan realm seems idyllic compared to the battlefields of France, but the town is dealing with its own horror in the form of an unknown force brutalizing its citizens. As the sole inhabitant of the village able to use a gun, Frank is forced to decide what his ultimate duty to Gerard is: to stay by their side until the inevitable, or to give his life for a chance at saving theirs.

My Take:

I love the concept of sylvian Gerard and human Frank together. I think it had a awesome combo of darker scenes (fairly intense trauma responses, gore and death) and more lighthearted scenes (dude the family scenes are so cute). There are also quite a few nsfw scenes. While likely proportional to how many they're normally are in fic, there is still quiet a few.

This is possibly one of my fav fics I've read in a long while, and i imagine I'll end up rereading it in the near future. For me personally this is a fic i would buy if its a book. Absolutely amazing i love it so much. Another banger from xobarriers and setulose, both who've written amazing fics, some of which are among my favorites. I dont want to over hype this fic too much and if dark fantasy isnt your thing theres other wonderful fics they've written, a few on my to recommend list.

This fic, is admittedly the longest ive recommend yet. It sits at 120k words, but those 120k words are worth it to read through. Its shorter than unholyverse, so if you can read through that, you can read through this.

[xobarriers]

FRANK IERO 🔥

[xobarriers]

Aukland, 2023

📸 : Doug Peters for Ambient Light Blog

[xobarriers]

I'm not capable of asking for anything normally anymore it's always either going to be "mother wants" or "please for the boy"

[xobarriers]

LONG LIVE THE BLACK PARADE

[xobarriers]

@xobarriers and i have just posted the final chapter of our fic for this year's bbb, In My Sights! we've put soooooo much of our hearts and souls (and dicks) into this project, i'm incredibly proud of how it came out and so so excited it's finally all out in the world :]

read it here (archive locked)

[xobarriers]

They find an open lane of skeeball after Adam gets John another beer and a seltzer for himself. Adam thinks he’s pretty decent at the game, especially when he manages to score 20 points instead of the bare minimum of 10. He steps aside and passes the next ball off to John, challenging him to, “Beat that.”

a whole new ballgame by pocketpepper AU: MLB player John x single dad Adam

[xobarriers]

Taken by Laci blowusakiss on Twitter, 7/19/25 in San Francisco, CA, USA

Taken by Laci blowusakiss on Twitter, 7/11/25 in Seattle, WA, USA

[xobarriers]

And is your rayrard yaoi a thematically relevant interpretation of gerard way's creative vision

[xobarriers]

📷 Steph Estrada

[xobarriers]

forever and ever and ever

[xobarriers]

awake and unafraid

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shining bright

[xobarriers]

x

[xobarriers]

oh my god you’re a fucking nerd

Hello!! I've just binge read "In My Sights", which is utterly fantastic work from you and your co-author!!

I was curious if you've sketched/have a visual of what sylvan ears look like? I've been struggling to draw them in a way that satisfies my imagination. (・・;)

xoxo

!!!! this is so very sweet thank you so much!!! we would absolutely LOVE to see your drawings if youre comfortable sharing!!!!

okay so i have a short answer and a long answer. the short answer is that yes just for you dear anon i sketched how i imagine them <3 please excuse the sloppiness and smudginess i was 1. drawing on waterproof paper and 2. technically on the clock at the time lol

as for the long answer (to a question you didnt really ask but i wanted to chatter about):

SO!!!! most of the nonhuman traits we gave to gerard's species were inspired by insects, for a couple different reasons. one is that @xobarriers and i are both certified Bug Guys and think they're cool. another is that we felt it paid homage to the classical tinkerbell image of a fairy—small, winged, and found living in nature, much like bugs. and finally, we felt it made sense as a design choice when spiders were the primary inspiration for the monster design.

the iridescent hair, while most often likened to feathers in narration, was inspired by the light refracting effect of blue morpho butterflies—their wings have NO blue pigment in them, all the color is a result of the way the tiny structures of their wings reflect light. the liquid diet and need to drink blood while pregnant was inspired by mosquitoes. the pupilless eyes were inspired by insect compound eyes. the green-brown variegation on their skin was inspired by grasshoppers. and the ear wings were inspired by. well. wings!!!

to provide a bit more context: very early on in embryonic development, every zygote will differentiate into germ layers. these germ layers provide the basis for every other structure that will eventually form in the growing embryo. the outermost germ layer is called the ectoderm, and it gives rise to both external ears in humans and wings in insects!!! so it made "sense" to me that a species like sylvans could evolve to have earlike projections that would resemble bug wings.

additionally (although pre-crustacean gills and pre-mammalian fish gills are NOT homologous structures so this is really no justification), the external human ear evolved from gill structures of our evolutionary ancestors, and one of the major theories for insect wing evolution is that they also evolved from a type of gill!

i say all this to make the point: i dont think there's one Right Way to envision sylvan ear projections as far as shape and crossvenation and all that go. anything thats sufficiently insect inspired could work!!

[xobarriers]

study of gerard way after francis bacon's screaming pope

[xobarriers]

ALIEN (1979) dir. Ridley Scott