page 1 (you are here) | page 2 | page 3 | page 4 | page 5 | page 6 | page 7 | page 8 | page 9 | page 10 | page 11 | page 12 This is one of the earliest multi-page comic ideas I had, I drew out the sketches for this comic over a year and a half ago. It took a while to actually get around to making this, but at the same time in some ways, it's been very easy to make this comic, even if my understanding of these characters has changed and grown with time. I was considering posting this comic all at once, but tumblr woudln't let me put all pages on one post, and I fear that the authorial image descriptions would become hard or cumbersome to read all in one post. Maybe one day I'll compile it into a proper little pdf.

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ID: A traditionally inked, digitally colored comic. Panel one is solid darkness which extends across the top of the comic from end to end. "Please don't react badly," says a crumbling, square speech balloon from Tenzō. Immediately overlapping it is a wavering speech balloon from Kakashi, which leads into the second panel. The second panel is also darkness, but it is smaller, contained, does not spread the width of the page. "—Tenzō!? What are you doing in my apartment? Weren't you on a mission with another cell?" In the third panel, colored in dark reds, oranges, and yellows, we see Tenzō curled defensively around himself, wearing his Anbu gear, clutching a bandaged arm. His speech balloons follow the general curve of his body, as though he's trying to make a second defense of his words. Tenzō says: "This is bad. I know. I'm asking something terrible. But I don't...I can't..." In the fourth panel, we have a low view, looking up at a backlit Kakashi, warm yellow light pouring in around him, his body in shadow. He's standing stiffly. "Can't what? Tenzō, what's wrong?" He asks. The fifth panel is silent. Close on Tenzō's blank Anbu mask where he sits huddled. The sixth panel, Tenzō turns, mask and all, away, hunching even further in on himself, raising his shoulders around his mask. "I'm sorry," he says. /end ID

christopher, i know traditionally a letter starts with dear but when i discovered that dear means you have some regard for someone it made me rethink it for certain people; you being one of those people. but you wanted to know how i feel and so i am point blank going to give it to you. i want to take you back to the divorce, when you would scream at alex and you and mom would have screaming matches downstairs. alex wasn't the only one who heard everything - i wasn't on the stairs so i didn't hear every little detail - but i've heard enough to know what happened and to harbor a lot of resentment for you for that alone. did you know that beating your child with a belt isn't normal disciplinary action for a child? i remember when i was four there were several times you'd hit me with a belt or a curtain rod. i only ever remember age four because it felt to me like the years all melded together, it was hell and walking on eggshells for a long time. i remember covering myself in my top bunk with stuffies and blankets so you wouldn't find me because - at age four - you had thrown me into a panic attack and i was hyperventilating and scared. i was terrified, sobbing, and unable to breathe and i remember i kept trying to push a pillow over my face to make myself stop breathing. at such a young age i had already developed some degree of anxiety because of you, the first of my mental illnesses. i don't know how it was decided that i was gonna be the girly child, i never actually cared for it. i wore dresses because they were laid out for me, i honestly don't know where it started and i guess i can't really put the blame on anyone but that did seriously mess me up as a kid. i knew i was a boy but there were some things i liked that were traditionally feminine and since i was born in a "female" body i was the girly girl. did you know gender is actually developed by your brain and determined by the way different parts of your brain interact? it is proven that trans men's brain patterns are closest to biological men's. that said my love for makeup and the like is still very much alive, i guess it's the fault of society's gendering. up until sixth grade i only really have memories in pieces. it turns out an eating disorder eats away at your memory too. i remember i saw a picture of myself in the school yearbook and i had a clip holding up my hair and a double chin and i was completely repulsed. that day i cried and cried and cried because i hated myself. this led to my second mental illness, depression. i remember feeling like hurting myself but not knowing how any of that worked so i went to my father and kept trying to tell him that something was wrong and i needed to see a doctor, you told me i was being overdramatic and that i was a hormonal teenager. so when i found pictures of people cutting and hanging themselves online and they said that made everything stop hurting i realized i could drag a pair of scissors across my wrists until they were dripping with blood and feel nothing. shortly after this i developed my third which was anorexia, i stopped eating and no one cared. i know no one did because no one pushed me to eat when i would decline because of my "prediabetic" status. everyone patted me on the back and told me i was doing good so i kept going. i exercised a minimum of eight hours a day, eating no more than ninety calories a day and running until i burnt over one thousand. then i went to cardio and i would only stop when my vision got so spotty that i couldn't see. this continued steadily and without much change until my eighth grade year. september 9, 2013 my long distance best friend of three years killed himself. we had started talking over similar interests over social media and eventually we ended up skyping almost every day. he was also my first love - first person i'd ever fallen in love with - so the loss left me broken hearted and hopeless. at this point it wasn't unusual for you to scream at me, just before this time you had screamed me into my first really bad blackout - meaning i got so upset that i was not aware of my surroundings or in control of my body - panic attack. you had said i was a burden, that injuries and sicknesses were my own fault, that i was shit, that i was worthless. i don't know how you justified these outbursts that you would have to yourself, did you really not think they would hurt your child - who looked up to you as their father? after tyler killed himself i figured i had nothing to lose and started cutting every day - having only ever done it once in a long while previously. one night it got particularly deep and i just wanted to jab the scissors deeper. i passed out on my bed and woke up the next morning covered in blood, i always wondered if you had not cared enough to notice or not cared enough to check on me for the course of that entire night. i started attempting my life regularly, sometimes with cutting, sometimes with pills, i even tried to smother myself when i was breaking down from your screaming yet again. i don't know how many times you'd scream at me, but it made me think littler and littler about myself. i remember once when i had gone in for a check up the nurse looked at you and said is this normal - having pulled up my sleeve and seen my forearms covered in cuts - and you just shrugged. i continued like this for a long time and kept looking for your approval and trying to give you chances to be my father again and you would scream at me and it would crush me. i remember each time you would scream at me vividly, but there are way too many times for me to account for - i simply refuse to waste that much time on you trying to make a point. all i can say is if someone has a stern tone with me i involuntarily burst into tears, if someone raises their voice my body throws itself into a panic attack, and i can't hear the word excuse without having a breakdown and at the very least bursting into tears. want to know why? you traumatized me, i have ptsd because of you. (i had previous suspicion, but was officially diagnosed by the therapist you had me see in my junior year, she told me it was a relatively extreme case.) it got to the point where i swallowed three bottles of pills and cut my wrists as deep as i could and passed out in my bed. this was about ninth grade and this is the year that i stopped loving you. even i had my doubts that i could just one day stop loving the man who shares half my dna, but then i discovered the reasoning behind using dear in a letter. dear is an adjective used for someone for whom you feel deep affection or regard, it can also refer to something expensive or precious. this made me realize that i no longer loved you, that i no longer feel anything for you. it used to be that i could not stand being kissed goodnight or touched by you in the slightest and now it just makes me uncomfortable because it feels as if a stranger is invading my personal space. you are not dear to me and you have not been for years, you've screamed me into multiple breakdowns/panic attacks and been an abusive father, verbally, emotionally, and mentally. now i have severe depression, severe anxiety, borderline personality disorder, and severe post traumatic stress disorder because of you. your "talks" still wake me up crying at night. if mom takes a sterner tone with me or someone says the word excuse to me i involuntarily start to cry. you severed our relationship by the way you treated me and i'm not sorry to say that there is no repairing it. as far as i'm concerned you have done too much damage. as far as i'm concerned you are not my father and i am not your son. i see gabby and sam going down the same road i've been on for so long, you've been breaking them down for a long time as you did with me. one can only take so much before it's enough and let me tell you it's pretty close with both of them. you need to clean up your act and be open to educating and getting yourself help because the way that you "parent" and "talk" to your children is not normal. initially i had to diagnose myself with all of my mental illness because you would not take me to a doctor and said it was "bullshit" and "fake" - that said i was formally diagnosed by professionals because self diagnosis are rarely taken seriously or medicated - i've educated myself extensively on mental illnesses and you definitely have at least one. from what i've seen you most definitely have either depression, bipolar disorder, or a mix of borderline personality disorder and either of the two. you need to actively get help if you care about the little that remain of your children - and by actively i mean actually trying and wanting to change and talking to a doctor or a therapist about all the things that go through your head and how you feel at every time during your day and actually trying and not blowing it off as bullshit and saying you're "fine". you're not "fine", you're so not "fine" that two children have severed ties with you, two children have self harmed because of you, two children have attempted their lives because of you. it may be due to mental illness (that i know you don't really believe in), but that does not "excuse" - even using it just then made me breakdown for twenty minutes do you see what your words can do - being abusive. part of mental illness is realizing you have a problem and realizing when you are being abusive so you can own up to it and stop being abusive. just because you are mentally ill does not mean that you can be abusive and get away with it, but if you admit to having a problem and seek help people are most often willing to forgive prior abuse. i, however, in this case am not. you have hurt me too much. again, as far as i'm concerned you are not my father and i am not your son, your sperm simply fertilized my mother's egg. now i know this might have you emotional, but there is one last thing you could do for me if you ever really cared about me. become aware of yourself. i know this isn't what you want to hear, but that does not mean you get to pick up my siblings from grandma's after work and scream at them. that is abusive. the way you are is abusive. you are an abusive father to the three children that you do have. i highly suggest that you seek help so you can stop abusing my siblings, because even if you are not my father they are my siblings. i may not love you but i love them, if you hurt them i will do everything in my power to help them even if it means they have to cut you out of their lives too. i guarantee if you don't get and actively seek out help you will lose the three children that you do still have. as far as i'm concerned i am not your child and do not expect nor want any gifts or money that you might want or feel the need to give during holidays. do not hug me or touch me without my permission and do not talk to me, to do otherwise would be a violation of my personal space and consent as it would be if any other stranger were to do the same. you may only contact me of things regarding my siblings because as far as i'm concerned they are the only reason we would ever need to have any contact. i do hope you seek help for the sake of your kids, christopher, you need to discover how to be a healthy parent to your children and if you choose to remain in denial or stuck in your ways you will lose them, not because of me or mom, but because you will push them too far. as far as i'm concerned, you are not my father and i am not your son. you have lost the right to be my father. goodbye. sincerely, Anders Todd