This is crossposted on ao3
So basically I made an OC for Battle Tendency named Marty Robin. After the events of BT, Marty is going through it, and when Speedwagon offers him the job of looking after the last two vampire horses, Marty agrees to...
●Marty Robin- a reference to country singer Marty Robbins. One of my favorite country artists, and also a perfect name for a cowboy.
●The title of this story is also based on a Marty Robbins song, and be prepared for that, bc there will be a lot of references to him.
●About a year and a half ago, I was rewatching Battle Tendency. I had just gotten to the duel between Wamuu and Joseph and I realized something, we never see the vampire horses after this. Like, what happened to them?
●Did they die? Did the Speedwagon Foundation pick them up? If so, could they be classified as an endangered species, and granted a reserve?
●Originally Marty was just some guy, but I remembered the only way people could handle them was if they had hamon, or else they'd be thrown around like a rag doll. This meant he needed to learn hamon, and the only place we see that does that is Air Supplena, so he'd probably have to be involved in the plot.
First sketch of Marty I ever did ages ago. Not super proud of it now, so be prepared to see something better soon. My art is also the banner image for this chapter, it's a more recent doodle of my boy Santana.
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●It was then I thought about the fact that Santana gets locked up in the foundation forever, and that seemed very unfair to me. If I was going to have the vampire horses live on a peaceful nature reserve, why couldn't Santana? That then developed further when my friend responded to my rambling with the genius line "cowboy boyfriend for the vampire" and the rest is history
●Things to know about Marty:
-During the events of this fic and Battle Tendency, Marty is 20 years old.
-He was born Febuary 15th, 1919 in El Paso, Texas.
-He was the youngest of 6 on his family's farm, and underwent a lot of trauma at the hands of his family. (Because I can't write happy characters)
-At 15 Marty ran away from home and snuck aboard a ship once he got to the coast. That ship took him to Italy where he met, and became a student of Lisa Lisa.
-Marty knows that many see him as a dumb hick, and he lets them. Let them think he's stupid, when really he's incredibly smart. He has a knack for observation, and absorbs useless facts like a sponge. All his free time growing up was spent reading any book he could get his hands on, and learning everything he could.
-Is incredibly curious about how things work. This man had to physically restrain himself from asking Kars for a detailed explanation on how the stone masks worked.
-He's also quite stubborn at times, but usually his stubbornness comes from his desire to help those he cares for. Marty has always been a bit of a bleeding heart, and he's also supremely loyal. Anyone says something about someone he cares about, and Marty is ready to throw hands at a moments notice.
-Tries to think of the best plan to get everyone out of a situation safely. If that doesn't happen, then he will feel at fault even if he isn't.
-Does not know how to accept genuine compliments or praise because it's not something he was offered a lot of growing up.
-Can't handle people spending money on him, especially if it's expensive. It makes him feel like he owes them, even if he doesn't.
-Last thing, I wanted him to use hamon in a unique way, and so I came up with the idea that like Caesar he has specialized gloves that help him. He harnesses the moisture in the air with hamon to make ice and then punches the attacks at people with spiked gloves. Sort of like Major Armstrong in FMA. It was majorly inspired by that scene on the mountain in Battle Tendency where Joseph makes a whole ass ice latter using falling ice and the moisture in the air to glue them together.
● One last Santana sketch for the road
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