#WHOAG im getting asks i feel honored....

[inismor]

YOU HAVE AN OC NAMED EZRA PLS TELL ME ABOUT THEM THATS MY FAVORITE NAME

AHA HI ANON HI!!!!! IM GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!!!! [concerningly long inhale]

Ezra is my specialest little side character in a midwest-gothic-esque post-apo story i refuse to write out. I added a tl;dr at the bottom bc this ended up being quite the essay SHDHDHDHF...

(Quick intro: ~10 years after nuclear fallout in the equivalent of 2000's America, all the more developed cities have been destroyed and travel became incredibly dangerous. Life now mostly thrives in small, closed off communities and tiny towns, where without contact with the outside world the line between urban myth and reality begins to blur. Things get Weird™, old gods resurfacing and the collective human psyche manifesting in its purest form ensue >:))

Ezra (Ezra Owen) himself is a 17 year old guy living in High Hopes, the titular town. At a very young age he was "recruited"/"chosen" to worship the deity of isolation (not at all inspired by TMA:the lonely), made all the way easier bc of his tendency to be a loner anyway. Over time it evolved into His Whole Thing where he believed and *wanted* to believe that it's his true calling/destiny: he'd sacrifice larger and larger parts of himself to it for a sense of purpose, becoming utterly devoted to his solitude, up until he was about to make the biggest sacrifice of them all and pledge his humanity to the god. Unbeknownst to him, the story's main crew has been investigating the unusual paranormal activity for a while now, finding out almost everything about the situation from afar. They finally meet Ezra on the day of the ritual when they manage to barge in and intervene, explaining to him how he's been manipulated and there's thousands just like him, convinced by the heartless entity that they're destined to worship it while there never really was anything dooming them to this fate other than believing it. With the support of the newly found friend group (including a future partner) Ezra slowly learns to abandon the tragic role he's tailored for himself and takes first shaky steps in a world of human relationships. He very much stays a rather extreme introvert & still relapses sometimes, but now has a steady source of unconditional love and acceptance to return to looking out for him :]

TL;DR: my beloved religious trauma guy who escaped a narrative of his own making facing the ordeal of being known & learning to love it