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xiaolin-show-hoe · 3 months

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"Trouble Ages Like Wine" Prompt 2

There were days when the time hit him like a brick to the face.

He stared at the Xiaolin Dragons, grown for about a decade from when they first met, but to Chase, it was only a moment.

The monks had grown taller, stronger, faster, and smarter. They had become a real challenge to handle and when he watched from the sidelines as Wuya fought unvaliantly to get her hands on a new Wu…Chase felt his eyes freeze on the scene.

It was then that he wondered how fast time would keep going.

He would forever be in its grasp and while he could act as though it was his weapon, it was nothing more than that, an act.

He was no greater than any other except he had time on his side.

It however did not play by rules which he could dictate. He was at its mercy just the same.

While the monks got stronger, the Heylin side grew weaker. Many of their allies had simply become passing figures.

It was then that Chase witnessed yet another defeat on their end. Wuya losing to the Xiaolin was no longer abnormal, in fact, it was becoming as common as Jack losing to them. It was something he would have to fix.

--------

With Wuya's loss, they returned to the Citadel.

"We are being made fools of Chase! This has to end! We need to get a leg up on those Xiaolin monks. Why not ask Hanni-"

"Wuya," He growled warningly and he enjoyed how quickly she went quiet.

"It seems you have misjudged your position here. Let me clarify it for you," Chase rumbled with a slam of his fist upon one of his pillars, his dragon form slipping under his reactionary anger.

She walked backward in fear as he rounded her, his form festering into existence on his skin like a plague.

"You have no power here witch and you'd do well to remember that I merely tolerate you."

His words got deeper as he shifted fully and hulled over her menacingly adding, "Do Not Test Me."

She simply nodded at him and excused herself as she should. With a painstaking shift back to human skin he sighed. Every day the monks became more powerful. Soon even Chase would have trouble taking them on alone. He knew this day would come, but he had blinked and the young ones were no longer young.

The were-dragon put his hands behind him and merely walked over to his large chair, his large cats walking with him.

<i> 'Master why do you seem anxious?' </i> one in particular asked and Chase found himself at a loss. Indeed, why was he? Was it because of the future yet to come or simply this feeling of displeasement with the idea of one day having to work beside his fellow Heylon just to keep the Xiaolin side in check.

When did he start to feel this way?

'I have many things on my mind. It seems the tide of good and evil have become rather unbalanced since….'

Chase paused mid step as he finished the thought with an aggravated sound, '...since that worm Jack Spicer stopped coming around.'

All his cat warriors seemed to feel similar to him as all their ears lowered.

<i> 'The screeching child that smells strongly of burning oils and pudding?' </i>

'Indeed, the one and same foolish buffoon.' He finished and thought of when he last saw the irritating nuisance. How many years had it been? Surely it had been enough time to expect some more positive changes in his social skills?

Chase hardly doubted it, but he would check for the sake of evil. After all, he would rather check on him than that wretched vegetable.

He went to his seeing crystal and summoned the image of Spicer to make sure his visit would be at a good time. Ever since he had walked in on the worm dead asleep in a pile of garbage, he had found it less complicated to simply see where the other man was before teleporting over.

An visual was conjured in the crystal and Chase raised an eyebrow in shock.

Chase blinked before staring again at the image before him.

Well then, seems he should pay Spicer a visit.

Without another moment, he summoned his Heylin magic to transport him to Jack's location.

●●●●●●●○○○○○○○○●●●●●●●●○○○○○○○○●●

Jack banged his head, a resounding clang was all that greeted him back. With lifeless motion he did it again, "Come on Jim, you can't mess up my dinner schedule because of a little prank. Do your goddamn job."

All he heard was a snicker from the otherside. Goddammit, idiot wardens.

Fury rolled in him but his hunger made him weak enough to forget it. He turned instead to sit against the door. He began to kick his feet since his hands were wrapped around him in the straight jacket. A special detention center just for him. He felt honored.

He wondered if he should just go to sleep, try and pass the time that way.

He couldn't and he knew it. Still he hoped his mind would calm itself.

He closed his eyes and started thinking of food he used to have. He groaned and kicked his feet up like a kid. At least he could move them.

Suddenly Jack felt goosebumps prickle his body and the smell of burning leather hitting his nose.

It was familiar in a way that rolled in his stomach as he opened his eyes in shock to see…Chase Young in the flesh in his isolation unit.

Was this a hallucination? Had he been that far gone or was he already asleep?

Chase looked the absolute same with his smug face and handsome jawline that had Jack's heart racing everything. His jaw dropped, "C-Chase…What brings you uh here?"

The red head cursed his stuttering and wondered if he was imagining it all. It was more likely than Chase Young appearing to him after so long.

The man silently looked around the padded cell with that smile still condescending. "Seems your living situation has changed since I last saw you. It seems much more…quaint."

Jack rolled his eyes at the statement, smirking back nervously, "Yep, definitely not the same. So…What do you want?"

He watched those golden eyes scour him appraisingly. It made him get a shiver and nerves bubbled up as well as so many thoughts. He couldn't voice anything as the black haired man sit a mere 6 feet from him.

"Good, I will make this quick."

That smug look was gone and something cold replaced it. His neck prickled at the words and Jack wondered if Chase was here to kill him…but why now? The look on his face became unreadable and Ah, that's what Jack was used to the most.

"How would you like to be on the Heylin side once more, Spicer?"

The redhead froze for a moment.

Then he started laughing hard. Almost damn near crying, now CONVINCED he was hallucinating. There was no way Chase Young, his evil idol from his teen years, was here to ask him of all people to help him in aiding evil. The prideful arrogant asshole of a powerful handsome god would never.

Which is why he wondered when they had drugged his food if he hadn't ate yet. The dragon man had simply looked at him calculating and cruel as always, Jack didn't even flinch at it.

"Chase Young asking, ME of all people, for help? I call bullshit."

The evil warlord stared down at him and emotion of mixed fury rolled in his stomach at the haughty look, like he was trash…

The eternal being repeated the question again, the threat never veiled in his voice.

Joke was on Chase because Jack literally could not care anymore about anything. His answer was obvious to himself alone it seemed.

"Fuck no."

Chase blinked and seemed to narrow his eyes, "No?"

That is the prompt number 2, 'Trouble Ages Like Wine'. This story is about Chase noticing how much stronger the Xiaolin grow while Heylin weaken. He decides to check on Jack and finds himself set on seeing how Jack is changed.

Except he is in prison and has changed in a way that Chase tolerates, enough so that he makes Jack become his apprentice... even against Jack's wishes.

#fanfiction #chack #i love xiaolin showdown to an unhealthy degree #xs jack spicer #xs chase young #xiaolin showdown #jack spicer #chase young

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bunnydongsik · 3 days

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man, I get confused when I see headcanons and such about Dongsik being like a guide for Joowon on "how to be a person", and supporting him with his mental health and such and being this stable experienced, calm mentor figure.

I'm not saying that Dongsik is not going to be supporting Joowon, but the only stable thing about that man is his love.

I think that when it comes to supporting the other's mental health, Joowon is going to be doing the heavy lifting.

Like, in series, Joowon is basically "okay", when judging the stability of someone's mental health, the foundational, immediate appraisal includes things like "sleep", "hygiene", "food intake", "emotional stability", and "ability to take care of one's home".

The most glaring problem with Joowon is that he has very little support - this issue is resolved during the show, although Joowon has to learn that it has in fact been solved, which is probably a bit difficult to get used to.

Dongsik on the other hand shows worrying behaviour in basically everything that I just listed, and although he has people who love him, he doesn't let them help him (although he has hopefully become a bit better about this in the end)

We see that Dongsik can't sleep, and while I don't think he stops showering he definitely shows very little care with his clothing (until he finds Yuyeon, notably) and particularly lets himself go regarding hair and shaving after Minjeung dies. He has a lot of experience with not eating, and he seems to maybe rely a little bit too heavily on instant noodles for an adult with a fulltime job and - well, we have all seen his house.

I don't think I have to describe just how emotionally unstable he is in the show, in one interview I saw it described as "flying from one extreme to the other". He also decribes himself as "ruined" and "a total wreck" - definitely leading the mind to more than just mild depression.

He also clearly doesn't value himself. When we see him give away his shoes and holdan umbrella over another person's head in the pouring rain - that is an excellent showcase of his selflessness and kindness, but a harsher light shines on this scene when we learn that he did that for 12 hours. in autumn. That is not healthy behaviour - at least call someone to bring you another umbrella and pair of shoes?? or someone else can come and hold the goddamn umbrella. We also see him help Bang Juseon's family - even though he is treated so harshly. And he still tries to stay cheerful and he certainly doesn't complain. And he still buys the new lock? and presumeably puts it up.

And later on, when the restaurant lady throws salt on him - which is apparently a ritual done to "ward of evil" - he says something like "ma'am, why would you waste your precious salt on someone like me?" Dongsik, please value yourself, just a little.

that isn't to say that he doesn't have good or bad periods - the show really makes a point of how important it is to share a meal with those you love, and we do see him cleanshaven and with a haircut at the end.

But Dongsik has been living like that for 20 years, it is not just going to go away, and there is definitely a reason that the director suggested that Dongsik should commit suicide - but in the end it was agreed that it would be a stronger and more responsible ending to show the power of love and how it can help someone through the tough times.

So my point here is that Dongsik is just, insanely traumatised, even in the beginning of the show, and then it just.... piles on. like it is wild - by the time he found Yuyeon in the fucking wall, I said out loud to myself, "Isn't this a bit much?", and then it kept going even more lol.

And that trauma has shaped him as a person, and I still hold the belief that Dongsik lacks many of the experiences that you expect from a 40 year old man - no one can convince me that he has ever been in a relationship, or that he has a lot of sexual experience.

Furthermore, I see a lot of people say that Joowon has arrested development, but I would acutally argue that there is a stronger case for that with Dongsik. Joowon is emotionally closed off and doesn't seem to realise how lonely he is or how sheltered, but other than that he is fully functional.

Severe trauma is known to fuck with the brain, also regarding developement, and I think Dongsik was hit hard. I am going to copy and paste a little from another post I wrote, so forgive me if you have already read this:

"He has a lot of scenes where he just seems weirdly young, a stand out example to me, is when he's crying as he interrogates Nam Sangbae, while Sangbae praises him for working hard - and then the way he wipes his tears.

Also interesting that between Joowon and Dongsik, it is Dongsik who has a prominent father figure in his life - who picks him up from the police station (Dongsik even complaining to him that he is not a kid), making sure he eats and just generally taking care of him, as seen in the period after Sangyeob's death."

I want to add emphasis on the role that Sangbae plays in Dongsik's life - Only Dongsik's behaviour towards Minjeung (described as being a mother and half a father), comes close to the way Sangbae acts towards Dongsik. Even though he should be fully capable of taking care of himself at his age.

According to the script book, Sangbae's very last thoughts are about Dongsik and how he would have to "break down alone"- and he refers to him as "pitiful" and essentially tries to grab onto Joowon's hand because he knows his death will break Dongsik, and not necessarily because he really wants to live.

And on that note, I find it fascinating how much Joowon slides into the role that Sangbae left behind - not entirely of course, Joowon doesn't take on an authority role. But he does take on a caretaker role.

Sangbae laments the fact that Dongsik will have to break down alone because he, Sangbae, will be dead- but that isn't true, because Joowon holds him in his lap while he cries. and when Dongsik goes to the lake house, it is Joowon who picks him up and tells him to keep moving - mirrored by Sangbae going to Dongsik's house when Sangyeob died and telling him he had to live on.

Sangbae and Joowon really mirror each other regarding their role in Dongsik's life - Sangbae also lampshades this himself when he tells Joowon to stop pursuing Dongsik as a suspect and potentially ruin an innocent person's life - because that is exactly what Sangbae did. And after they individually finish tormenting Dongsik and realise their mistake, they decide that they will do anything for him - partly out of guilt, partly out of love.

But one major difference between Sangbae and Joowon is that Joowon didn't need someone to kick him in the butt to start moving - he does that on his own, without any prompting (also to the detriment of Sangbae, because Joowon at this point is still an idiot who thinks he is too good for help, and is too busy antagonising Dongsik instead of working with him)

I also think that this is the thematic reason for Joowon surviving and overcoming and growing to be a better person, while Sangbae has to die. Too little too late, he had 20 years to do something about the obvious corruption, Joowon had like, 2 months.

This once again meandered a looot and touched on a lot of different themes, but that is simply because it is all connected in my brain.

The main point is that Dongsik is not some emotionally healthy, stable and experienced mentor whom Joowon can look to for guidance - he is in fact severely fucked up. More so than Joowon, I would argue, partly because Dongsik simply went through a lot, but also because I think that Joowon is more resilient.

Joowon isn't so much in need of someone to help him function, as he is of someone who will always, always love him, completely and selflessly and unconditionally, who will serve as an "anchor" that he can always return to, and who will shown him patience when he messes up instead of throwing him away. And Dongsik is the perfect candidate for that, perhaps even partly because of his trauma.

I think that Dongsik is always going to be a bit off and maybe need a bit of extra support, and I think Joowon will always be haunted by guilt and by the shadows of his parents - but by their powers combined of Dongsik being made of love and forgiveness, and Joowon being a devoted, obsessive little freak about that old man, they will make it anyway and thrive.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

#beyond evil #jwds #han joowon #lee dongsik #my post

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ambiguouspuzuma · 2 months

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The Colour of Fire

"This must be tough on your lot, huh?"

"What do you mean," Palira asked, already knowing where this conversation was headed. Her tail coiled instinctively beneath the desk.

"Oh, come on, you know what I mean." The customer was human, as they so often were. He counted out his coins on the counter, as if she wouldn't have to tally them herself. "I don't know what the right word is nowadays. Is dragon still allowed? We're not supposed to say wyrms, right? Or is that wyverns?"

"Dragon is fine." She didn't bother outlining the difference. If he cared, he wouldn't already know. "But I understood the your lot, as you so diplomatically put it. I meant the other part. What must be tough?"

"Look, you know, getting rid of coins and that. The paper money. You people like piling it up, right? Hoarding? What are you going to do - make a stack? Build a mattress out of wads of notes?"

"That's a stereotype." Palira let the you people slide. Some days she was just grateful for people. "The idea that we sleep atop of a mound of gold. It really doesn't work that way."

Her ancestors would have swallowed him whole, but evolution had seen them go the way of the giants, adapted for life in the crowded cities. She'd kept her tail, her wings, her penchant for pyrotechnics, but wore clothes and worked behind a counter; the same number of scales, just scaled down. No less a dragon, but more of what his sort would recognise as a person.

She began the process of counting his coins away, keeping a tally as she went. This change to paper money was welcome, but it involved an awful lot of hassle: all of the old coins would need to be taken out of circulation, with notes issued in exchange. Vast exchanges had been set up to manage the transition, with dozens of trusted workers like Palira having to manually convert between the two. It wasn't too bad, when they let her concentrate.

"Right, that's what I'm asking." The human really wasn't getting the hint. "How does it work, then? You just pile it up to look at it? You don't eat it, do you?"

Palira sighed, a wisp of frustrated smoke escaping from her nose. "Traditionally - and I don't speak for all dragons here, because we're all individuals - we've just been drawn to gold for the way that it gleams. In our culture, it's the colour of fire, which is obviously also sacred to us. It's that lustre we revere above all else. Not how much is can be traded for at the greengrocers."

They'd always loved gold for its appearance - just as his ancestors had, before they'd gone and made it weird. Humanity had declared this simple metal to be the unit of all worth, the symbol of trade, and then also used it as the marker of their greed. A love for gold was seen as toxic, the root of all their sins, whilst loving other things was still allowed. Dragons were painted as the embodiment of miserly evil, when they were aesthetes: they'd only ever cared about the beauty of the gold itself.

Of course, the human translation of gold-as-money had also made it incredibly hard to get hold of the stuff. Even those who didn't care for the colour needed it to eat every day, to invest in new clothes, to save to put a roof over their heads. They started hoarding it, hiding it, packing it away in bank vaults where nobody could admire it at all. For Palira and her lot, the transition to paper money couldn't have come sooner.

No wonder so many had applied to work at exchanges like this: handing out the new notes, and taking the redundant old coins in exchange. Finally, they could show the world how little they cared for money: they would make an arrangement of that gold, yes, now that it was no longer legal tender. They would remove it from circulation all right. It had been freed up to be worshipped, just like in the olden days. Legally worthless, but still worth everything to them.

"Fire's red," the man told her. "Everyone knows that."

"You have a good day," Palira said, handing over his wads for safekeeping. She could easily find out where he lived, if she thought he needed more of a lesson, channelling the fury of her ancestors for the modern age. That was the other good thing about paper money, she thought: it was much more flammable.

#writing #short story #writeblr #creative writing #original writing

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ronoken · 5 months

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Dr. Technus

A cleaned up version of a writing prompt project!

Writing prompt: You're a villain, but you find yourself in a situation where you can help a child. What do you do?

***

Three hours after your fight with Superior Force, you see a news blurb about your battle. It’d been a tough one. The marvel of might™ had kicked the ever-loving crap out of your new, and now completely trashed, super suit. You’d held your own, but then he took a particularly hard swing at your dome-covered head and put you clean through a building. The outer wall had buckled, and the resulting partial collapse had given you just enough time to crash through the other side and get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, the building had been occupied, so Superior Force opted to stick around and help rescue civilians instead of finding you and ripping you apart like you were made of tinfoil. Again. This was your fifth attempt at a super suit that could withstand his blows, and he still beat you like you were an ant fighting God, which honestly wasn’t that far off when you considered how freakishly strong the hero in question was. You realize (as you’re wont to do at moments like these) that you’re lucky to be alive.

Now that you’re back in your hidden and extremely evil lair, you get a little curious about the aftermath of the fight. What building had he put you through? You were kind of seeing stars when you hit that wall. There was some screaming. That’s… about all you remember. It’s been a rough day.

Fucking heroes.

You see a newscaster interviewing Superior Force in front of a pile of rubble. Behind him, firefighters are spraying it down. You realize you must have hit a gas line. That would explain the explosion that rocked you, the building that fell on you, and so on.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t stop her before she had a chance to hurt more innocent people,” Superior Force’s voice has a warble to it. It sounds like a mixture of sadness and rage. You have to admit, he’s extremely effective at making you feel like he’s sincere. “Picking a fight in the middle of the street is one thing, but Dr. Technus made a mistake when she decided to attack a children’s hospital.”

You freeze. You feel your blood pounding in your skull. Attacked? A children’s hospital?! You blew up a Dennys! It wasn’t even a particularly good Dennys! What is that idiot blathering about? You…

You went through a building. There was an explosion. There were screams.

Some of those screams were awfully childlike.

“We’ve been digging these children out, but there’s a lot of rubble. We’re trying to be careful, but this is…” Superior Force stops to collect himself. He looks off camera for a moment at what you assume is the remains of the hospital. “She’s a monster. For her victims, for Sunbeam, for all the children she’s killed, I promise you; we will take this murderer down.”

You scream. You throw your broken dome helmet at a monitor where Superior Force is fishing a bloody child out of the rubble. You listen to the newscaster call you a terrorist and a monster. You stare at the cracked screen, and the face of the man who put you through that building.

You remember. Your mind goes back to an image. A little girl with green eyes. Her still body in a hospital bed. Her mother sobbing beside her.

You’re a planner. A schemer. You always have been. You rarely go into a situation without having examined every potential outcome. It’s why you’re still alive. It’s why you’re one of the most dangerous villains in the world.

You almost never act without having a plan.

Almost.

You grab your portal gun.

***

Getting in was easy. You’ve had a portal gun for years. You don’t often use it because admittedly, it takes a lot of the fun out of breaking into places. When you just want to slip in and out, though? Portal gun. Most of your criminal empire was funded this way. You’d portal into a bank vault, clean it out, and portal home. No cops, no alarms, no interruptions.

But this isn’t a vault.

You adjust your lab coat around your waist and straighten your tie. Of course you have a tie. You may be a villain, but you’re not a bum. You’re a fucking doctor after all, and you can dress professionally when the mood suits you.

You step out of a storage closet and slip into the busy crowd of doctors and nurses weaving through the halls. The east wing took the blast, but the rest of the hospital was apparently unharmed. Superior Idiot managed to clear the rubble in the space of an hour, and most of the patients and staff that lived were now relocated to new rooms. Still, a lot of people were hurt. A lot of staff were taken out. They’re short-handed, and there’s a lot of wounded.

You pick a room. It doesn’t matter which one; they’re all full. You quietly open the door and step inside to see three curtains for three small beds. The staff had to pile the kids up to find a place for them. The beeping from the machines is annoyingly loud.

You slide the first curtain back. A little girl, no more than eight, is lying in a propped-up hospital bed. She’s wearing pajamas with a blue dog on them. Her skin, dark brown, is crisscrossed with bandages. Her eyes are closed.

You read her chart. She was here for Lymphoma, but now she’s… You glance at the bed sheets and notice they’re flat where her legs should be. You grip the chart in your hand so hard the clipboard cracks.

You read the other two children’s charts. A little boy with muscular dystrophy, now down an eye. A little girl with a heart murmur and a missing arm.

You take notes. You leave and go to the next room. You go to all the rooms.

When you portal back to your evil lair, you resist the urge to throw a tantrum. Tantrums are fun, but they’re not productive. You need to be productive right now.

First and foremost, you consider creating a gun to kill Superior Force. Not maim. Not torture. You want to blast a fucking hole through his head and call it a day. You’ve never… You’ve rarely gone that far.

You stop. You glance at the far wall of your lab, and at the transmogrifier ray you keep in a chrome display case. It’s easily one of your deadliest weapons, and one of the few you actively avoid using.

“She’s a monster. For her victims, for Sunbeam.”

You’ve rarely gone that far, but right now? It’s really tempting.

You shake your head. There’ll be time for killing later. Instead, you roll up your sleeves and get to work.

As you settle in to begin, you immediately recognize a problem. You’re evil. Ergo, you tend to design evil things. A little bio-plague work here, some exo suits there, a killer android or two, you know. The usual. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done. It just comes easy to you. Other stuff? Not so much. You just don’t normally problem-solve for, well, situations like today. You’ve never needed to. You… You’re getting frustrated. You get yourself a coffee from your kitchenette and mix in extra cream and stevia. Deep breaths. This is a problem, and you’re a problem solver. You’re smart. You can do this.

You start with what you know. You pull up your schematics for your cyborg soldiers. God, that was a total bust of an evil scheme. The morons you hired worked just fine at first, but then they got too cocky and tried to go solo. They ended up getting flattened by the Collective Good. Still, you’d come up with some doozies while working with them. Carbon fiber bones. Nerve attachments for limbs. Cybernetics. The works.

Once you dive in, you realize it’s easy work. You’ve done this before. You’ve done all of this before, but never this small. You force yourself not to think about how tiny the fingers on the cybernetic hand are. How small the eye you’re crafting has to be. You look over your notes and pay careful attention to the feedback you received when installing these parts the first time. What hurt. What didn’t. You have to stop when you find your vision blurring as you design a skull plate for an infant.

Dammit. This isn’t what you do. You’re Dr. Technus. You’re a villain. You’re evil.

You think back to what you saw at the hospital.

You remember a little girl with green eyes lying motionless in her bed.

You’re evil. This is true. But you tell yourself that you’re not a fucking monster. You’re not… you’re not that…

You finish the plate. It’s the last piece you need.

You look at your notes and frown. This is already way out of your wheelhouse, but something still feels bad.

Then, it dawns on you.

You know how bad some of their conditions are. You scanned them as you read their charts. You bring up their medical records, one by one. You review how severe each one is. You review the causes.

This can’t be serious, you tell yourself. You’ve made diseases a hundred times worse than this on the regular in your lab. You’ve worked with these cancers and viruses and bacteria a dozen times over, at the very least! You once infected congress with six of these diseases on a whim! You…

You’ve worked with these diseases before.

The thought rolls through your mind like a freight train. You stare at the readouts. The charts. The names of the children. You remember their faces as they slept. You come to a decision.

Nanites are expensive to produce. They take time, they’re a bit finicky, and God do you hate programming them, but you’ve already got the data you need on file. You’ve got the nanite stock saved up for your attack on the financial district this Friday.

You fire up your laptop. The financial district can wait a week. You’ve got priorities.

***

You portal directly into the first room you visited the night before. The children are still there, but this time, they’re awake. You just popped into existence between them and the television on the wall behind you.

Two sets of eyes stare at you. The third child, the one missing an eye, is still asleep.

You stare back. You realize you have less than three seconds before someone screams.

“Well now!” You say in your best authority voice. Thank God you wore your medical coat. Thank God you dressed the part. “Uh, Yeah. Sorry if I surprised you. We’re, we, um, we’re trying some new technology here. At the hospital. I guess it works.”

You grin and wink. The little girl with no legs giggles. The girl with one arm smiles. That was stupidly easy.

You snap your fingers, and a blue portal opens behind you. Three medical drones float out, each carrying a small, metal suitcase. They set them down in a neat row as you click a button on your wrist. The cases let out a small hiss as they open. The medical drones float back a bit and patiently hover in place.

Okay, they’re not really medical drones. They’re part of your murder swarm, but they’re versatile, and their battery casings were large enough you could stencil a medical cross on their sides, so for today, they’re medical drones.

You realize you forgot to remove their machine guns, but then you push the thought to the side. It’s probably not important for this trip. Probably.

You lock eyes with the first girl. She’s nervous, but curious about what you’re up to. “I heard about your, um, your leg situation,” you say. Leg situation? You really are not good at this.

The little girl looks down at where her legs used to be. She rubs her thigh. “The doctors said they were crushed.” You notice the bandages need changing. God, this place must be short staffed, what with everyone dying the other day. Sue looks at you with tears on her cheeks. “Why’d they have to take my legs? Why couldn’t they fix them?”

You bite your lip before remembering that she’s a child and you’re here for a specific reason, and that reason isn’t to be an asshole. “Well,” you start, your mind racing. “So, um, yes. About that. Let’s say they were, um, getting you ready.”

She cocks her head at that. “For what?”

You pick up the new, silver legs you crafted and hold them up for her to see.

“For these.”

Her eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. She covers her mouth with her hands.

You glance at the other little girl and nod. “Give me five minutes. You’re next.”

***

The first little girl (Cassie. She excitedly introduced herself as you attached her right leg) is now walking in circles to get used to her new legs. The second is busy flexing her fingers as you finish installing a cybernetic eye into the still sleeping boy.

“My fingers feel weird,” the second little girl (Amy) says. “Are they supposed to tingle?

You shrug. You don’t look up from your work as you reply. “I just reconnected all five nerve branches in your arm to alien technology. It’s going to take a bit to calibrate your bio signature and recognize all your weird human bits. Just give it time.”

Amy’s eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. “This is an alien arm?”

Your attention doesn’t waver from the boy in front of you. Why are optic nerves so difficult to work with? “Well, only kind of. I stole the tech from an alien race, but I’ve modified it quite a bit. I’d say it’s about 30% alien? Give or take? Maybe 40%?”

Amy flexes her hand again and grins. “This is so awesome. I can feel things! It’s like a whole new arm!”

“That’s because it’s a whole new arm,” you mutter. You finish with a satisfying click as the eye powers up. It appears to be working, but the boy is still asleep, so asking him is out of the question. You nod. Of course, he’s out. He took a hit to the head. He’s in a coma with potential brain damage.

If only there was a way to fix that…

You smile to yourself.

Cassie jumps in place and laughs. “They feel just like my old legs, but stronger! I feel like I could jump to the moon!”

“I don’t know about the moon, but you’ll find those legs could outrun, um, you could do well in track.” You take out three syringes from the medical drone’s cases. “Now,” you say as you watch their smiles fade at the site of the giant needles in your hands. “Who feels like getting really better?”

You portal from room to room. You kind of have to. Distracted or not, the staff would notice your medical drones following you around. Most of the time, the kids are asleep. Sometimes, you find them awake. That’s not so bad, as the awake ones can verify your tech is working right. By the fifth room, you can hear commotion in the halls. The doctors know someone just performed a miracle. You work fast. You’d prefer not to be noticed.

You have an image to maintain.

It takes two hours, but you manage to treat every single child. Even the ones that weren’t caught in the explosion were paid a visit. You were only spotted once, and that was towards the end. You were in the NICU, installing the skull plate. You’d just finished when you glanced up to see a nurse standing in the doorway watching you. You thought she was going to scream, or run for help, or, well, something, but then you remembered you weren’t in costume. Well, you were, but not your normal one?

“What are you doing?” She asked. She took a hesitant step forward when she realized the baby’s head wasn’t bandaged anymore, but covered her mouth in shock when she heard the infant let out a cry. Per the chart, the child had been in critical condition. Now, the poor thing just wanted a bottle.

The nurse cautiously picked up the baby, her fingers dancing over where the metal plate has been inserted. Already, the nanites had rebuilt most of the skin on her head. In two more minutes, you wouldn’t even be able to see a scar.

The nurse looked up at you as you opened a portal to slip away. You expected her to say something, but she just stared at you, then at the baby, and to your amazement, she turned her back on you to find a bottle in the little table next to the child’s incubator.

You know a cue when you see one, so you stepped back into your portal and blipped out of there.

***

It’s been six weeks since your little crisis of faith. You shook off, labeling it as a momentary bout of insanity, and focused on getting right back to what you did best. You’ve knocked over three banks, two credit unions, and a diamond exchange for good measure. Your little stunt at the hospital had been thorough, and thoroughly expensive. You needed to replenish.

You also had to set the record straight. For example, Vulcan wouldn’t stop running his stupid mouth at the last Legion meeting when you all had more important things to deal with. Lately, meetings had become more focused on whether or not to officially join with the Purge (the premier supervillain organization on the planet) or to stay an independent organization. There were benefits to both, but you personally weren’t interested in a merger. As it was, you were a senior member in the Legion of Evil. That meant you didn’t have to answer to anyone. Not that you had an issue with the heads of the Purge. Hell, you’d even had dinner with Dyspell last month. Nice gal. Very business focused. Still, you preferred being a big fish in a small pond.

And Vulcan was currently pissing in that pond.

You let his shit talk about you going soft slide the first few times, but the second he started loudly telling everyone about how you should have finished off those stupid brats when you had the chance, you decided enough was enough and put a phaser blast through the back of his skull. You had to admit, the most satisfying part of all of that was watching what amounted to a rock-covered pro wrestler collapse to the floor like, pardon the expression, a bag of bricks.

No one else gave you any crap that night. It was a most productive meeting. The vote to stay independent passed eight to three.

And now here you are, doing what you do best. That being blowing shit up and stealing some cash. Yes, it’s a little base, and armored cars are a little flashy, but you’re feeling the need to express yourself today, and you wanted to test out the latest version of your melting gun you’d been working on, so hey, why not?

With the truck on its side and the drivers knocked out, you help yourself to some cash. As you grab a sack of money, you suddenly notice that the sunlight coming through the hole in the side of the truck is now blocked.

You turn. Floating outside the car is Infinity Lass. Shit. She’s got her arms crossed, and the look on her face is, well, you’re not sure.

You force yourself not to ogle her. The white leotard doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination, and you dig the boots. You won’t ever outright admit she was the reason, but you bought some Jeffery Campbell knee-highs from Nordstrom out of sheer envy a while back. Still, fashion aside, you view her as a work problem. A hot work problem, but a work problem.

“Technus,” her voice is firm. How do heroes do that? The clear, projecting commands? Did they all do theater? In the back of your mind, you wonder if they have voice coaches.

“Dr. Technus, if you don’t mind?” You say with as much bravado as you can muster. This was stupid. You came here to test a melting gun, not deal with one of the strongest women on the planet. And no, you can’t melt Infinity Lass. One, it wouldn’t work. Two, it’d piss her off. Three… you wouldn’t get past two. You’d be a stain.

You ready your portal so you can try to slide the hell out of there when she clears her throat. “Dr. Technus,” she says. You pause. Since when do the heroes do manners with you? This is new. Kinda weird. “Would you mind putting down that sack of money and stepping outside?”

The absolute hell?! What is this? Why isn’t she using laser eyes or something? Why the manners? This is legitimately creeping you out. You’re so put off that you actually do as she says. It’s only 10% because she’s hot. That’s what you tell yourself.

You stare her down. This could go any number of ways. Some heroes are easy-peasy, some are a hard time, and some can absolutely wreck your shit. Infinity Lass is solidly in the third camp. Even with a full battle suit, you’d be hard pressed to hold your own. And you’re not in your battle suit; you’re in your stupid skintight heist suit. This is not hero-fighting attire. This is get in-and-out attire. You’re… Dammit. You are not dressed for today. You’ve only got a phase plaster, your cool-but-useless-against-this-problem melting gun, your portal trick, some sonic bees, a plasma grenade… Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You can improvise, but this is already listing itself as a Bad Time in your head.

You tense. You should start with the melting gun. Yeah, it won’t hurt her, but it’ll piss her off. While she’s busy breaking it and yelling at you, you can use the bees. She hates the bees. That’ll buy you ten seconds. Then…

She reaches into her belt and slips out a small envelope. Stunned, you watch as she slowly floats down to your level to hand it to you.

“I was there,” she says in a strained voice as you stare at the envelope. There’s no name on the outside. “I saw what happened that night. The press was wrong. Tom shouldn’t have…” Her eyes go wide as she catches herself. You shrug her off. You know most of their identities, and the moron only covers his with glasses. Seriously, who does that?

Wait, she was there?

You remember the interview.

“We’ve been digging these children out, but there’s a lot of rubble. We’re trying to be careful.”

Superior Force wasn’t using a generic “we.” He was referring to her, but then where was she during the fight?

“You were there?” You ask.

She nods.

“What is this?” You ask. You open the envelope to find a folded crayon picture of a little girl with an oversized silver arm. Next to her is a doodle person in a lab coat. They’re both smiling. The text under it is a bit wobbly, but you can still read it.

“I was sitting with my daughter when you came crashing through the wall,” Infinity Lass keeps her eyes on yours, but you’re focused on the picture in your hand. “I tried to keep the ceiling from collapsing, but it all happened so fast I, I couldn’t...”

“Thank you for the arm?” You realize you just read it out loud. You look up at Infinity Lass, who looks like she’s holding back a lot of emotions.

“My daughter. Amy was, her heart, it…” She wipes her eyes and clears her throat. She’s doing her best not to lose her crap in front of you, and you honestly can’t blame her. You’d be about the same in her shoes. “She collapsed on the playground. The doctors said it was grade five, that she needed surgery, and then her, her arm was…”

And now she does lose it, and you try to be polite and look away. This is not what you came here for, but this is also kind of fascinating. You knew Infinity Lass had a daughter, but you never looked to much into it. Something about a messy divorce, a bad court case, the shitty usual. You knew the broad strokes.

Infinity Lass sniffed as she did her best to compose herself. “Amy says the arm stopped tingling, but it’s acting a little funny. Something about a twitch in her ring finger? Still, it’s, it’s a lot better than no arm. She, um, she asked if I ever saw you to, um, to give you that. And to thank you.”

You hold the paper like it’s made of porcelain. It’s… Oh God. It’s a thank you letter. It’s a thank you letter from a child you helped. This has never happened before. You’re genuinely not sure what you’re supposed to do, but a part of you is screaming that this little piece of paper is worth more than the money behind you.

“She wanted me to thank you,” Infinity Lass stresses. “A part of me realizes none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been there that night, but I, I recognize that this wasn’t… I saw the other children. The ones you helped. A nurse told me she saw you save a newborn.”

You stutter. “Look, I just, that wasn’t…”

You’re honestly grateful when she cuts you off. You weren’t sure where you were going.

Infinity Lass cuts you off. “That bought you a pass. For today. With me, at least.”

You both turn when you hear sirens approaching. She glances at the gun on your hip.

“Do me a favor?” She asks. She points at the gun. “Is that a melting gun?”

You nod dumbly. “Um, yes. Yes, it is. Works fine on metal, but I doubt it’d do more than piss you off, so, um, not to worry.”

“Would you shut up and shoot me with it already?” Infinity Lass is staring down the road at the cops that are quickly approaching.

“What?” You ask. Today is all sorts of messed up.

“Do you want to escape or not?” Infinity Lass snaps. “Just fucking shoot me and get out of here.” She bites her lip and glances back at the cops, who are only a block away. “Before I change my mind.”

You gently slide the note into your belt. You unhook your melting gun and take aim at her stomach. She flies back unusually far when you hit her, which is strange, since when you did this before, she barely flinched. She makes a point of collapsing on the pavement.

You take your cue. With a flash of blue light, you slip away as the cops pull up.

***

The next day, you’re taking some me-time. You’re sitting in a café that you go out of your way to preserve during your fights, as it serves the best pastries in town. The coffee is pretty decent, and the angry little barista is doing her best to get through her undergrad, and you sympathize with her. She wants to go into premed. You repeatedly warn her off it, but she’s stubborn. She’s feisty. She reminds you of you.

You’re halfway through your coffee and stuck on a sudoku as a blonde woman in a nice red sweater and gray dress pants slides into the booth across from you. She’s wearing glasses, but you know those eyes. That stare. Seriously. Glasses are the stupidest disguise ever.

You lower your own glasses and stare back. Yours aren’t… you’re near-sighted, okay? So, yes, you could fix it in a jiffy, but you’ve got a thing about eyes and, it’s not a costume. It’s not a costume.

“When I picked up Amy from school today,” the woman begins. “She told me the nice doctor lady came by during lunchtime and adjusted her arm. She says the twitch is gone, but when she threw a dodge ball, she broke a little boy’s nose.”

You snort. You can’t help it. It’s not a villainous snort, but your incognito right now, so it’s okay. “Tell her to be more careful,” you say through a smirk.

The woman stares at you for a moment before visibly relaxing. She sips her coffee, which is mostly cream and sugar. “Why did you save my daughter?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Beg pardon?”

“You heard me,” she bites back. “Why? It wasn’t for publicity. I’ve checked around. You’ve been quiet about everything that went down. Hell, word on the street is you even killed Vulcan for talking about what you did.”

“Kill is a strong word,” you point out. “He’s a sentient golem. I’m sure he’ll pop up again. Eventually.”

The woman continues. “And that armored car thing yesterday? No super suit, no real weapons… You weren’t expecting company, were you?”

You don’t acknowledge anything she says. You just sip your coffee and count the exits.

“So, why?” She asks again. “You’ve never done anything like that before. You don’t help people. You’ve never helped people. So why now? Why her?”

You hear the underlying question. “Why my daughter?”

You sip your coffee as slowly as you can. You weren’t ready for this. You take a moment to compose your thoughts. You think about the different ways you can answer her.

‘Fuck it,’ you think to yourself.

You take out your phone and scroll through your photos. You slide it across the table to show the woman a photo of a little green-eyed girl in pajamas playing with a toy castle.

“My niece, Olivea.” you say in what you hope is a casual tone. “That’s her at Christmas at my sister’s.”

The woman looks at the photo. “She’s cute.”

You nod and partially hide behind your cup of coffee as you sip it. You wonder if your trembling is noticeable. “She was six when, when her mother’s car was knocked off a bridge by Sunbeam.”

The woman tenses. You figured she would. Most folks on both sides of the line knew about Sunbeam.

“He managed to fish the car out, and my sis lived, but Olive… She’d been under too long. Died at the hospital right in front of her mama.”

The woman across from you sets the phone down on the table. She looks at you over the rim of her glasses. “You killed Sunbeam, didn’t you?”

You nod as you wipe at your eyes. Dammit. You hate talking about this. Hate it, hate it, hate it. “You’re goddamn right I killed him. Transmogrified the air in his lungs into water and watched him drown in the middle of the street.” You take another sip. “It was the most satisfying day of my life.”

“Is that why you do this?” She asks. “The crime? The killing? Is it for revenge?”

You shrug. “I do it because I’m good at it. I do it because it makes me rich.” You put your phone back in your pocket. “And because sometimes when I’m staring down a hero, I see my niece’s body laying on a gurney. I hear my sister sobbing. I remember how she drank herself to death, and how I had to bury her next to her kid. I remember the only two people I ever cared about and how they were taken from me, and then, yeah. Sometimes, it’s for revenge.”

The woman stares at her coffee for a solid thirty seconds. You feel your anxiety rising. Talking about dead loved ones and being cornered in your safe space was not how the afternoon was supposed to go.

“So, you didn’t help Amy because she was my daughter?”

You shake your head. “Carol, I didn’t even know she was in there. I just… I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be another Sunbeam. I didn’t want another…” You’re not sure how to finish that sentence. You’ve been trying hard to forget how you acted that night.

You swallow to fight back the lump in your throat. “I couldn’t take the thought of being responsible for that. I can live with a lot, but not that.”

Carol looks slightly alarmed that you used her name, but you shrug it off. Like you don’t know most of the Collective Good’s identities? Please. You’re a super genius and you got through medical school. You know what’s up.

Carol fidgets with her coffee for a few moments before clearing her throat. “So, um, I don’t, um, I don’t know if you’d… This is harder than I thought it would be. I…”

“Spit it out, Carol. Don’t make me get my melting gun.” You smile as you say it. You’re not serious. You don’t have your melting gun.

You have your phase disruptor, and the safety is off and ready to go, but you don’t think you’ll need it.

Carol finally relaxes and flashes you a smile. “Please. That thing couldn’t even give me a tan.”

“Could have fooled me,” you say as you consider taking a bite of your strawberry Danish. Should you eat in front of her? Would that be rude? You really want that Danish.

“No, I couldn’t. But I fooled those cops, didn’t I?”

You grin. You were right; she was totally faking. “Why are you really here?”

Carol slides a picture across the table. It’s of a young man with curly black hair. “There’s a kid in Amy’s class that was paralyzed last fall in a car crash. His name’s Dawson. Drunk driver broadsided him and his mom. She was fine, but he lost the use of his legs.”

You glance at Carol. “And?”

Carol frowns. “I just, I thought that, um…”

“I’m not a charity,” you say in a low voice. You stand. “Look, don’t get the wrong idea. What happened at the hospital was a one-time thing. Those kids shouldn’t suffer just because one of your people can’t control his temper.”

“What about all the kids you cured?” Carol asks. “The doctors said all the patients had a clean bill of health. No cancer, no tumors, nothing. Amy’s heart is completely fixed up. What did Superior Force have to do with that?”

You don’t answer. You hate it when people point things out to you that you have trouble arguing. Hell, why did you do that? What’s gotten into you?

You walk away from Carol, your coffee, and your Danish. This conversation is over. You’re pretty sure she’s not going to follow you, but you still keep an eye out. You’re right. You see her through the window as you power-walk away. She’s still at the booth.

You look down at your hands. You realize the picture is still in your hands.

“Goddammit,” you mutter.

***

Five days later, you’re scrolling through your newsfeed and see a feel-good story about a local boy named Dawson who miraculously regained the use of his legs after eating his school lunch. You scroll past. Taking the place of the cafeteria worker had been worse than your six-month stint in county when you were 19. You’d prefer not to think about it.

***

The next day, your favorite barista hands you back your cash and gives you a slightly larger than normal drink.

“Already covered,” she says. “A blonde lady with a kid came in and asked me to cover it. Also, can I ask you about my bio-chem midterm?”

“Thanks, and hell no. I blocked that course out of my mind. You’re on your own,” you say with a shudder.

The barista hands you an envelope.

“What this?” you ask.

“That blonde lady dropped it off this morning with the cash. Said if I saw you to give this to you. You sure I can’t ask? I really don’t wanna do a retake.”

Your mind races. You already know who she’s talking about, but the panic side of your mind is in overdrive. She knows this is your place. She can find you here. They can all find you here. It was stupid to come back. Fuck the Danishes. This was a Bad Idea.

Still…

You nod your thanks and go to your booth, ignoring the barista’s pleas for help. You open the envelope and take out a photo of Amy, her bionic arm loosely wrapped around the neck of a little boy you remember serving a special helping of spaghetti to a few days ago. They’re both standing in front of the school and grinning.

You smile. You don’t mean to, and you swear you’ll kill anyone who notices, but you smile.

You casually flip the photo over and freeze. On the back is a message.

Well, a number and a message.

Amy wants you to come to dinner. Call me.

You swallow your coffee in three gulps.

Fucking heroes.

#Dr Technus #original idea #original fiction #original writing #bad guys #villains #villains doing good

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sketching-shark · 1 year

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Would you say that the LMK writers don't understand Wukong as a character? Of course, there are different interpretations and adaptations of not only this character but many other beloved characters from different stories.

But I think if 10 different writers create a story about, say, Spider-Man. Even if they all do something different with the character, Spider-Man should still be recognizable as Spider-Man. Like there are inherent traits that simply make the character who they are.

Do you think LMK Wukong is missing those inherent traits, or I guess completely misses the point on who SWK is a character?

Monkie Kid spoilers below:

I guess I'd have to start off by saying that I'm very hesitant, especially as someone who is neither Chinese or of Chinese descent, to say whether there's a truly "wrong" way to understand or write the Monkey King. Hell I've often poked fun at the way Sun Wukong has frequently been written in Chinese retellings of Journey to the West, and it must be acknowledged that there is a MASSIVE numbers of very different ways that Sun Wukong has been depicted in Xiyouji retellings, from a silly little guy to a hardened war criminal. For example, here's a Sun Wukong who's definitely an evil little bloodthirsty scamp as presented by Stephen Chow in Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013):

youtube

And here's a panel of the Monkey King "Aku" from Marjorie Liu's (who's of Taiwanese descent) Monstress. Here he's feasting on fruit while watching the souls of a bunch of kids that he had slaughtered be tortured for information:

So yes, there's a pretty big difference between these version of the Monkey King and many others, including his multifaceted presentation in the og classic and the laid-back goof that Monkie Kid seems to be aiming for! THAT SAID, and even while acknowledging that the Monkey King as a character has gone through innumerable transformations (lol), I can't help but feel like the writers for Monkie Kid might be letting their Sun Wukong fall prey to the all-too-common push for "more epic!," "The antagonists were right all along," "Pile on the angst!" and the kind of standard taking out the "intelligent" in "intelligent stone monkey" that you see in other western versions of the Monkey King. For example, Netflix's The New Legend of Monkey stars a muscleheaded and illiterate Monkey King, and while it was more of a one-off jest that was quickly disproved in Monkie Kid it is a bit well bothersome how to this day you'll find "lol Sun Wukong can't read!" jokes being bandied about.

I also don't think that anyone can deny that lego show Sun Wukong has been presented as less and less of a competent or even heroic individual as the story's gone on, and personally I'm starting to suspect that this is partially because the writers A) didn't know how to make Qi Xiaotian shine as a hero otherwise and B) to make the Six-Eared Macaque change from obvious antagonist to a true member of team good guy. It's undeniable that Macaque is the firm fandom meow-meow and has been for awhile, and if memory serves correctly the "Sun Wukong sucks" rhetoric started to really take off after Macaque presented his shadow play back in season 2 in which the Monkey King is ultimately framed as nothing but a selfish jerk who betrays his friends on a whim. And while there's basically 0 reference in either recent canon or fanon to the stuff the shadow simian put Qi Xiaotian and his loved ones through up until the end of season 3, it's hammered in time after time after time again just how completely Sun Wukong hurt and still hurts everyone around him because of what he did or what he failed to do. As it is, now we've seen Zhu Dachu yell at SWK for failing to protect Qi Xiaotian, an entire play that framed him as a terrible person and Macaque flat-out saying he's a terrible teacher (and then the plot going out of its way to somewhat confirm this), many people yelling at SWK for his plan to use the Samadhi Fire being stupid and poorly thought out, Long Xiaojio screaming at him for failing everyone especially the people who care about him while she's on fire and in pain, the Azure Lion referring to SWK as someone who's corrupted Qi Xiaotian with his blindness, and the ink clone of Qi Xiaotian--you known, the manifestation of his scariest but truest fears--referring to SWK as a fraud and a force of destruction. So now SWK and the lego show story have been left is this weird place where it seems that in large part the "SWK completely sucks and hurts everyone" truthers were right--and you see this sentiment reflected CONSTANTLY in canon and in fanon--and yet when people just say that explicitly there's a certain amount of scrambling to argue otherwise. I know it's been discussed before, but I think it bears repeating that not that long ago the hatred being leveled at SWK for supposedly being Qi Xiaotian's deadbeat dad on top of everything else he ruined forever got to the point where a writer felt compelled to go on twitter to confirm that SWK is not the father. I think it was the same writer who said that SWK is trying his best, but as others have noted if THIS is his best (world seems like it's in danger of being destroyed every other week) well lol and also lmao. Idk, personally I think if they noted there were THAT many people ready to condemn SWK for something that wasn't even proven one way or another they should step back and think about why that is. And it definitely doesn't help that they keep saying that there's more to this story from SWK's perspective and/or what actually happened, but then they won't actually show it.

So in the end, I'm not sure if in Monkie Kid's case it's so much a instance of not understanding the Monkey King as much as it is about not wanting to stick with what makes the Monkey King so beloved in the first place, the writers themselves not having a firm idea about where they ultimately want his story to go, but also even if unconsciously using him as a punching bag/sacrificial lamb to further the stories/likeability of other characters. And who knows, maybe later episodes will give SWK a backstory that is so tragic and well written and that explains his failures in the present so well that I'll feel stupid for saying all of this. Honestly I would love it if that was the case. Because Monkie Kid seem to have become one of the main ways that a lot of people in the west are learning about the Monkey King and Journey to the West in the first place, and it would kind of suck if the main impression that they ended with was with SWK as nothing but an constant failure that basically everyone who's ever loved him or even spent time with him comes to distrust, resent, and flat-out hate for very legitimate reasons.

#anon answered #monkie kid #monkie kid spoilers

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southernisled · 5 months

Text

task 003; absence. Hans misses the only person who's ever loved & cared for him, his mother Sanne.

It was never a secret in the Westergaard family that Hans was regarded as the runt of his father's litter. The isolation his Mother endured as the youngest wife, the bullying he put up with as the weakest son, both of them being tossed to the bottom of the pile like trash. Sanne could have cut her losses and ran, she could have divorced and left him in that wicked, cruel palace with his awful father and barbaric brothers. But Sanne was kind, and loving and strong in ways no man could ever begin to comprehend, she stayed for love. She stayed for her son & lived with the consequences of it.

Dear Maman,

There's so much I want to tell you I don't even know where to start so lets begin with the obvious. I love you, and I miss you every single day. There is not an hour that passes that I don't think of you alone with those monsters. There is not a moment where I don't wish eternal misery to my godforsaken halfwit brothers and living corpse of a Father. I worry for you and your safety. I worry about what will happen when Niels finally takes over, where you will end up or what pathetic housing and allowance he will give you. Most of all I worry he would be evil enough to make you his wife, not that you would accept of course. I hope to be home by the time Father passes. I hope its my blade that pierces through his heart, and Niels, and anyone else who would dare get in our way. I hope to make the palace run red with their blood for the live they gave you, gave us. Have a glorious throne made of their bones fashioned for you as Queen Mother. I hope to return with alliances and armies that would grant us protection from anyone who would try challenge my claim. I have not forgotten my role in all of this. I have not forgotten about you and the life you have lived for me, to protect me. I do not take your love for granted and I swear to you, on my own life, that I will get us what is rightfully ours. I will repay you, I will avenge you for what it cost to be his wife. I will come home and I will tear down his empire brick by brick with bare hands and we will build a new Kingdom, and it shall have a new Queen.

Perhaps that last line was misleading, because Mother I have the most incredible news. Delight that will shock you and fill your bleeding heart with joy; I am going to be a Father. You will be a Grandmother, and I know it is not what either of us expected when I came to Evermore but I know how happy you will be to hear of it. Even better is that for the first time there will be a baby girl. This torture, toxicity, awfully cruel, hierarchy ends with her. There will be no one to challenge her claim or question her lineage, because even though I haven't met her yet; just like I would do it for you, I would kill anyone who dared try hurt her in anyway. Her Mother is called Aurora, like the borealis, is beautiful. She is soft, kind and deserving of everything wonderful. But I will be the first to admit I haven't been kind to her as of late. I was so worried I would end up like him. I didn't want a boy, I didn't want to be a Father knowing what Niels and Father would do if they found out. But I have decided it no longer matters because they will never meet either of my girls, at least not outside of a casket.

We are still a long way away from the due date, and everyday brings a more heightened level of anxiety but yet a clearer train of thought. Aurora has land, connections, parents who hold real power. Our daughter will grow up to lead two Kingdoms, and with Aurora's help we can change the course of the Westergaard name and turn it into something good. I know what I have to do. I know how I must make this world different for my Mother, my Daughter and my--- well I don't really have a name for Aurora to be honest. I considered proposing but it seemed tacky. Independent women and all that. My baby will bring opportunities you and I have been waiting years for. She will bring us alliances and land, power and connections. My baby will be the key to the happy ending you and I have been yearning for all these years. I know what I have to do and I will kill anyone who gets in our way.

I wish you were here. I wish I didn't have to do this alone, but I understand why. Please just hold on a little longer. I will bring you the peace we are deserved, the crown you are owed. I will bring you your Granddaughter, Queen of two Countries. I promise you, Maman, things are going to change and we will make them suffer.

All my love,

Your dutiful son, Hans.

#evermorehqstask #tw revenge plot #tw broken family #tw pregnancy #tw violence mention #'hes got a face only a mother could love'#for real tho Sanne Westergaard deserves better #thIS IS EVERYTHING I DIDNT SAY #5sos rep whoo

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joezworld · 2 years

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Electric Evil

Traintober Day 12 - Poltergeist

So, for context here, I stole took inspiration for most of this from the Extended Railway Series on the Sodor Island Forums (not for the first time and not for the last), and as usual, I've put some tweaks on it to make it better. #humble

Here I based a lot of this on ERS Novel 2 - The Peel Godred Railway, and while I recommend reading that, it's not required for this.

Summary - The DC Electric Line dies a violent death, and something rises out of it. Godred keeps it off his mountain.

1 - Nature

Those who believed in such things thought the very Valley was having its revenge on the rails.

It was not an entirely unreasonable belief. The Valley had not been consulted, nor did it want, the input of Man on how to conduct itself, and yet Man imposed his viewpoint anyway.

The first rails to reach the fortified Peel of King Godred was a small one, coming from the western coast. They were not of issue to the Valley.

Their small line worked with nature, inching along tight cliffs, running around mountains, and poking through gaps in the rock. Their service was first-rate, and the Valley’s People could soon move both themselves and their goods to markets far away. The Valley might have even enjoyed this - if one were to put stock in those sorts of beliefs - and caused no trouble for the second railway.

The second railway only touched the Valley on its edges. Its rails ascended The Mountain, reaching for the heavens. It courted the mountain, edged along it, never daring to defile it. The Valley paid it no notice, even as The Mountain slowly but surely became One with the rails.

The third railway, however, did not please The Valley. Its rails charged northwards, up to the base of The Mountain and then beyond, caring more for the River than it did for the Valley. This was a slight, but one that the Valley was willing to overlook.

What the railway brought with it, however, was an abomination. A massive blight on its natural order. A huge, noisy, dirty, stinking industrial plant that took ores from outside the Valley and processed them into Refined Aluminium, leaving equally huge piles of filthy, dirty, stinking refuse as a waste product.

The Valley disliked waste. It disliked aluminium, and by extent, it disliked the railway that served it. Its dislike grew as the first railway suffered and died as a result - their careful and meandering path to the sea was too small and too slow, and they lost even the most loyal passengers, slowly siphoned away by the bigger rails.

If the Valley disliked the railway, then the River was furious. The construction of the plant required massive amounts of Electricity, a new and unwanted evil that required nothing short of total damnation of everything around it, as a sacrifice.

Up and up the dam went, towering into the air until it seemed like it might touch the sky. The River raged, furious at having its path disrupted. The Valley seethed at the itching feeling of the huge structure.

During all of this, the Mountain was ambivalent. Man had lived here for hundreds of years - it was them who had ascribed life to the Valley and the River, and had built the Mountain Railway. To live in Harmony with them would be better for all involved, it soothed.

The Valley ignored the Mountain, and the River flooded its banks in displeasure.

Then Man fully damned them both. The huge concrete and earth structure was complete, and the River was soon fed into it.

And into it

Until there was no longer a River and a Valley behind the concrete, but a massive lake, made purely for man’s needs - a total damnation of nature, as a sacrifice at the demonic altar of Electricity.

The railway that ran up the mountain was powered by Electricity. Now tied together in both circumstances and rage, the River tried to flood it, and the Valley tried to collapse the land around it.

Man was multitudinous, and whenever they tried, a hundred men, or a thousand, would arrive, and right their wrongs.

The Mountain chastised them. Are they not Of This Land? It asked as the two cursed the railway, the plant, and the Men who worked on them. Are they not worthy of our care?

No. Responded the Valley And The River. They tried again, but Man stopped them.

And again.

Man simply persevered, expanding His mind through the concepts of “reinforcement”, “retaining walls”, “flood prevention”, and “embankments.” By the end of the first decade, the River was in check, and the Valley was unable to continue its crusade.

While the Mountain watched with concern, River and Valley waited for a time to strike.

They needn't have bothered; the denizens of the rails retaliated against themselves.

2 - Steel

The Valley Railway has had two lives - the second is still being lived, but the first died a long and unhappy death, done so by its own buffers.

Man was inexperienced in the ways of Electricity - they knew not how such technology would apply to the field of steel wheel to steel rail. They brought in a set of locomotives three - one of each power type, and named them for the Lakes around the Mountain that fed the River.

Loey Machan - The strongest and largest. An express locomotive with delusions of grandeur, his line had sold him after the line he was to lord over was cancelled. Instead of a fresh start, he thought the Railway to be an exile - banishment from his own personal Kingdom of Heaven, thrown instead to the wolves and the sheep and the peasantry - who were altogether worse than the beasts.

Poll-ny-Chrink - The middle engine. Neither the smallest or the largest, she was the youngest of a family of coal haulers, sold off during unfavourable economic times. Hard work was in her very being, and she arrived fairly aglow at the prospect of more challenging duties.

Dubbyn Moar - The runt. Tiny even by the standards of the time, she was surplus to requirements - a third engine on a ¾ mile horseshoe of a line that did well with two. She knew her position and size acutely, and would’ve had self-consciousness issues on even the kindest railway.

This was not the kindest Railway. Tucked away in the valley, far from notice of Men with Hatts - obsessed with Steam as they were - they worked alone, in the long shadows of the Valley, their complaints silenced by the rushing roar of the River.

Left to his own devices, Loey Machan felt that he needed to re-establish his dominance by any means necessary. In the long shadows and loud silences, he turned himself from a fallen god into a tyrant king.

Slowly, with equal parts bad luck, stupidity, and sociopathic insidiousness, Loey ground down the cheer and stability of his fellow engines. He believed that by turning them against themselves, he could engineer some kind of fiefdom, where he ruled over his serfs with an iron will.

Instead, he created an emotional horror show, with himself at the center.

Dubbyn Moar, now known as Maude, was his first target. He exploited her weakness, her doubts, and her size. Convinced of her own uselessness, she became moody and withdrawn. The engines of Steam and of Mountain, who knew not of what was going on behind their turned backs, assumed she was but a misanthrope and labelled her “Miserable Maude.” It soon became a self-actualising name.

Poll-ny-Chrink, nicknamed Polly, found herself alone in the world. Gone from a family of loving 11 to a hateful group of 2 drove her to the edge. As Loey pushed Maude to new lows, Polly drew into her own shell, believing the whole world to be as cruel and miserable as Loey claimed it was.

Finally, there was the mad king himself. Loey Machan was too stupid to understand the danger he put himself in, and too cruel to contemplate it if he was. In his quest to be the leader of a line where he was already “E1”, he drove away any emotional stability, any meaningful relationships, any hope of having friends. When he finally declared himself “King”, one sleep-deprived night during the war - where a stray German bomb “nearly” demolished him, he was already gone. In declaring himself King, he believed his own bullshit: that the world was cold and cruel, and the strong must crush the weak.

Loey was at his peak in that moment, and although he didn’t realize it, it was lonely at the top; nobody arrives alone and remains sane.

Far away but yet so close, the Mountain watched with concern. It could do nothing to help the Railway, and so merely kept the engines on its Railway as far from Loey as it could.

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3 - Starstrider

Peace almost came to the Railway.

In the late days of the sixth decade of the twentieth century, an engine arrived on the Railway. He was strong, contemplative, quietly charismatic, and surplus to the mainland’s requirements. The Men In Hatts - different ones, still obsessed with Steam, but in a much more frantic way - recognized his ability to calm the demons that plagued the Line. They thought that there were three such problems, not realizing that exorcising Loey would purge the evil from the rails.

They named this new engines after one of the greatest warrior kings in the Island’s history - Orry, he of the famed Ogmudsaga. Said to bring peace and security to the Island†, the Men hoped that the engine could do the same. As he was prepared for his first train, they quoted a historical text. “Starstrider had arrived.”

And arrive he did.

Sure of mind, free of heart, and generous with patience, the great Starstrider worked hard to undo what had been done - he brought happy news of one of Maude’s sisters surviving into preservation, and helped Polly through the guilt of being the only one of her kind to live.

With each passing day, the Starstrider brought more joy, and banished more fear and hate. The silencing roar of the river no longer covered hissed insults and vague threats, but brash laughter and cheery jokes. Smiles were common for the first time in decades.

Loey was furious. He had become so high on his own supply that he had forgotten that his castle had been built atop sand. A king that rules through fear will inspire fealty and obedience. A king that rules through respect will inspire loyalty and love.

To borrow human expressions, Maude and Polly wouldn’t have pissed on Loey if he were on fire, but they would have triple-headed a train with Orry through the gates of hell.

Naturally, the Tyrant King of the Valley could not allow this to stand. His castle began to slip, the mortar cracking as the sand shifted underneath it, and he worked like mad to keep everything as it had been.

Orry matched him wheel-turn for wheel-turn, and it seemed like he would eventually besiege Loey’s castle and send it tumbling to the ground, freeing Polly and Maude once and for all.

Privately, the engine with a saint’s patience and a king’s heart even hoped that Loey himself could be brought kicking and screaming into the light some day.

But it was not to be.

One rainy night, on the front of a heavy double-headed train, Loey failed with a pop and a bang. Was it really an accident, or was it more? No one will ever know for certain. Polly was insistent, perhaps at Loey’s urging, or perhaps her natural stubbornness, and the heavy train set off with her alone leading it.

It would never make it to the bottom of the line.

Halfway down the Valley, the train overcame the brakevan on a steep hill that ended at a sharp curve. A double load of aluminum ingots ran wild, and the train ended in a mangled pile between the rails and River, with what was left of Polly at the bottom. According to the tear-stricken Men who told Orry, forty cars worth of ingots had come loose and acted like buckshot through an animal - there was truly nothing left, other than shredded metal.

For Orry and Maude, this was a loss the likes of which they had never felt before. Polly was theirs, in every way that could possibly matter, and sudden destruction like this… was pain indescribable.

Then there was Loey.

Somewhere, deep inside his faltering mind, two wires that had no business being near each other crossed and sparked. In a moment of soulless and cruelty-laden pseudo-genius, he took this as a positive - claiming with sociopathic bombastity that he was fated to have avoided the accident. That the accident would have happened regardless of who had been pulling, and his exclusion from Polly’s horrible demise was simple and undeniable proof of his betterness. He was invincible. He was eternal. He was a god! The proof is right here!

There was, for a brief moment, true and total consideration on Orry’s part of figuring out a way to kill him, but Maude’s already fractured emotional state shattered like glass before that could happen. As Starstrider worked to rebuild his promised peace and security, the Tyrant King was banished to the top shed, deep within the plant’s shunting yard, well away from everyone else. Inside there, his miniature Saint Helena, he planned and he plotted ways to escape, to make his triumphant return to His Kingdom.

Locked away, inside the little shed that was barely bigger than he was, kept busy with shunting work in a yard that was bright even in the darkest night, and isolated from the line by a tunnel connecting the plant and top station to the rest of the Line, Loey Machan went quite mad.

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4 - May Day

As Loey went mad, and Orry worked to fix what could never be, the Valley and the River plotted.

There were many lakes that fed the River. Over the years, Man had defiled and damned them like they had done to the River, mostly for sport fishing purposes. One of these reservoirs, known as Corloey, was directly in line with the largest of the many damnations - the one that powered the horrible stinking plant and the Railway.

It was a natural reservoir, and Man had done little more than reinforce what was already there, but they had done that nearly 60 years ago, if not more. The reinforcements were primitive, and had destabilized the layers of soil and clay that had held the hills together for millenia untold.

Working together, well out of the Mountain’s sight, the River and Valley worked together to weaken the bonds between clay and soil, until something eventually gave.

On the first of May of the seventy-ninth year, the clay and the soil separated. Thousands of tons of dirt, trees, grass, and soil crashed down into the water of the Corloey reservoir. Its banks burst almost instantly, and fifty feet of water roared along the cackling River, down the gleeful Valley, destroying all in its path.

The dam was strong - far stronger than it had any right to be - and as the water hit it, slightly weakened by its mad charge down the miles of Valley, it held.

But it was only so tall.

A blue wall surged over its top like the waterfall from hell, and erased everything in the Valley below from existence.

The Peel of King Godred was saved from the worst of it - the great King had built his keep at the top of a small hill, surrounded on all sides but one by steep Valley. It was in that Valley that the River ran, as did the Railway, which tunneled under the town rather than skirt the edges like the River. The Plant was there too, and the dam. When the water destroyed all but the dam, the city survived - the annual May Day fete meant that even the citizenry were in the town square, and they watched the water surge below them.

For a brief moment, Orry had given a sigh of total relief when the reports came in. Loey was not allowed around passengers, and with the May Day traffic biased towards people and not freight, the Tyrant King was likely gone - destroyed under unimaginable tonnes of water as his yard was erased by the hand of God.

Then the rescue train returned - a stranded passenger train behind it, powerless after the wires went dead. It was not Maude who was uncoupled, but instead the Tyrant himself.

She failed, He explained, his shock already wearing off, insanity already taking its place. I was beseeched to take her train for her. Last I saw of her, she was in the yard.

In the yard.

The deep emptiness that opened in Orry’s heart that day would never truly go away, and his indomitable spirit finally broke as he listened to Loey prattle on about divinity and invincibility. Words were shouted, threats of murder issued, and the two Kings were separated, each one foaming at the mouth. Orry declared himself done with Loey, and the Island in general. The Man in the Hatt granted his transfer to the line of his brothers, and Starstrider departed, his spirit broken.

Meanwhile, the Tyrant King was jubilant. He’d driven off the interloper and reaffirmed his claim as King of this line. In his mind, power was all that mattered; The fact that he ruled over naught but dust never occurred to him.

They eventually reattached the wires to mains electricity, and the Tyrant King was allowed to roam his empty kingdom, shuttling trains of refuse from the reclamation site at the tunnel portal to the junction with the main line. By all accounts, these were the happiest days of his life.

Meanwhile, at the Mouth of the River Tid, the Man in the Hatt made a choice - the dam would be rebuilt, the plant as well; that much was out of his control. The dam owners had offered him a choice: keep the frequency of electricity that flowed through the Line now - one that was out of date and falling out of use on the mainland, or upgrade to the Standard Frequency of the Future?

If Loey had been the one reduced to scrap under the water, and it was Orry and Maude cleaning up the mess, the Man may have changed his mind - might have kept their Direct Current.

But all that was left was the Mad Tyrant King.

The order was placed, to a company in America, for Alternating Current equipment, the newest available.

Loey’s days were numbered.

His power was, quite literally, about to be turned off.

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5 - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Loey found out about his forced abdication, and reacted accordingly, frothing at the mouth and howling invectives at anyone and everyone. Men soon avoided him altogether, afraid of straying too close to his drooling maw - being eaten was a suddenly real fear.

Eventually, they turned the power off and left him on a siding - steam engines were infinitely better than an insane electric, and the final days of Loey’s life were spent hurling powerless insults at Scottish Twins who said worse to each other in loving jest.

Like Polly and Maude before him, Loey’s life ended violently and suddenly - the Ninth Engine was storming away from the rebuilding site, a heavy train of spoil and waste behind him, and a thick cloud of smoke and swears above him. There was a sudden snap, and the unbraked train parted at a broken coupling just behind the tender. Twenty-five cackling and screaming wagons roared down the grade leading towards the yard, the brakeman leaping for life. A quick thinking shunter threw a lever in panic, and the train was diverted away from the works site. Towards Loey.

The Mad Tyrant bellowed claims about his invulnerability until his last breath.

The railway sold what was left of him for scrap and used the proceeds to buy clothes for children who had lost theirs in the flood. It was the first time in years that he had been of any use to anyone.

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6 - Poltergeist

The Valley and The River felt the great evil snuff out. They had been infuriated by the failure of the flood. Clearly another means of revenge must be chosen. Pooling their great power carefully, they reached out, finding the faintest of threads connecting this world to the next, and they pulled.

The Mountain bellowed at them in horror, but they ignored it.

Slowly, but surely, an evil presence began to become known in the yard outside of Peel Godred.

It was an evil, machiavellian, scheming, plotting, altogether stupid presence. One that cared not for who you were or where you’d come from. All it wanted was to cause trouble, and re-establish itself as King of the Valley.

It wandered around, searching for lives to ruin.

First it tried the city, but as it approached the walls it began to feel pain - an unfamiliar sensation, and it turned and left. It was too idiotic and maddened to see the Norse Runes carved into the city walls glow with great power.

King Godred may be long dead, but his city he still protected.

Next he tried the rails that led up the mountain. His cloudy memories showed them to be stupid, and quiet, and purple.

He hated purple things.

He made it less than a wheel’s-turn onto the Mountain Railway, when the very ground shook.

Far away, in a university on the coast, a machine tuned for earthquakes started vibrating as a small earthquake rumbled out of the Valley.

He suddenly found himself flying through the air, as though He’d just been struck by a massive hand. He crashed into the far wall of the Valley, his incorporeal form bending and twisting in pain as he laid there, his infernal power drained in an instant as he tried to stay in this realm. He succeeded, but only just.

STAY OFF MY RAILWAY

The voice boomed in such a way that every hill, tree, and babbling brook for miles around could hear it. Elsewhere on the Island, other creatures that straddled the line between life and death jumped at the sudden sound.

The ground shook

The air shook

The very fabric of the veil between the two worlds shook

A sense of massive and untapped power emanated from the mountain, like a piece of heavy electrical equipment coming to life.

The Valley and the River suddenly knew great fear.

THIS ENDS HERE

The voice thundered down into the Valley and River. It promised great pain if they ever did so again.

Godred may have been long dead, but his railway he protected.

†Awdry, W., & Awdry, G. (1987). ORRY, KING*. In The Island of Sodor: Its people, history and railways (pp. 109–110). essay, Kaye & Ward.

#traintober #traintober2022 #traintober 2022 #ttte #sodor #fic #sentient vehicle headcanon #sentient vehicles #ttte godred #electric line #extended railway series #ghost trains

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delphiniumarchangelmoon · 8 months

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My brain is cooking up an absolute MOBSTER if a totk sequel idea

Pile of rant below the cut but the basically concept I think y’all will enjoy is that

post-totk Hyrule is going through a political rough patch about 15-20 years in the future, no one really knows what’s going to happen and the kingdom of Hyrule itself is shrunk down to really just central Hyrule down into the southeast to Lurelin. The individual races each have their own defined nations now and depending on political relations if can be easy or difficult to travel between them

(For example the Zora Kingdom and Hyrule are so close they’re practically merging due to how close the royals are, but no one’s been able to get into or out of Gerudo desert for YEARS)

And you play the game three times as three separate characters, each only having access to part of the map and only one side of the story, only to unlock a secret fourth storyline at the end that fully explains the plot.

Now onto the huge daydream universe I’ve been thinking up for a week

The crux of this story is a couple points:

1. Link entrusted each of his zonai abilities to young npc’s in the game. I haven’t exactly worked out what’s going to who yet but I know a few.

2. The Gerudo population began to see radical reactionary politics after the Demon King fiasco, with many desiring even stricter anti-man measures. Riju vehemently opposed these politics which created lots of tension, and decided to attempt to smooth things over by having an important Hylian political figure act as a sworn donee for her and her wife’s baby. It was Link. Like fathers Riju’s baby. Trust the process it’s gonna be cool.

The character who gets the Ultrahand ability straight away is Mattison, though she isn’t a playable character.

She keeps the ability a secret and learns to use it in hidden places with help from Riju. They become inseparable and Mattison wants nothing more than to protect her Chief and save their people from further isolating themselves.

Things gone to a head when Purah telraveks to the desert to give Riju an exam using new tech she just invented—essentially an ultrasound, and finds something… peculiar.

The baby might be a… male.

They do their best to keep quiet about it but Riju and up fighting with her wife over what to do about it. The wife insists that the child will only bring destruction and evil, as the Gerudo kinds of the ancient past. Riju insists that it is her duty as a mother to try regardless and if the child is truly doomed, she will save them from that fate herself.

But word soon gets out and an assasinqtion plot is put in place to rid them of Riju and the baby.

Meanwhile Mattison has been encountering a strange person out in the desert while she tests her vehicles in secret at night. A person covered head-to-tie in dark clothing riding a different zonai vehicle. They race each other night after night and eventually gain enough trust to speak with each other.

Mattison learns this person’s name is Coda and they are an engineer working with Zonai tech to make vehicles and musical instruments.

Their friendship grows and eventually when Mattison learns of the assasinqtion plot, she confides to Coda and asks for help getting Riju and the baby to safety.

They end up making a big flying machine and airlift Riju from a battle in the town square up to the Great Sky Island.

And that’s all you get to know about that at first.

Meanwhile Zelda and Link have kids of their own, a set of twins that legally carry their parents names as you’d expect, but go by nicknames to avoid any… negative attention for their lineage.

Free—the new Link—ends up spending most of his childhood in Rito Village after showing a liking for archery, areal combat, and climbing.

Free’s story begins when a diplomatic meeting is called between the Rito and the Gerudo at the border of their territory. Free accompanies an aging Teba and his apprentice Tulin along with some warriors to the meeting, where the illegitimate chief Malkena demands the Rito shrink their borders further despite already having the smallest territory in Hyrule. Teba obviously disagrees and a fight breaks out, Malkena killing Teba in the process. They are pushed back and the new elder Tulin asks Free to go to Lookout Landing and seek help from Purah. It is there he learns that his father Link hasn’t been seen in almost five years, but no one could get word to the Rito for various reasons.

Meanwhile his sister “Faith” is our second lead—YES, a playable Zelda!— stays in Tarrey Town helping run Link’s new business “Cafe on the hill” a small bakery and eatery run out of their sprawling mansion overlooking the town (which is more of a giant fortress city now)

She shows a propensity for magic, like her mother but more controlled and concentrated. She loves exploring and foraging in the hills of Hyrule and is very good at navigating on her own. When her father goes missing she is quick to want to look for him but the older population in the town assures her that he’s always been a wanderer. She waits and waits but he doesn’t come home. Faith then decides to seek consul from an eccentric old man who runs a monster museum who claims to have been a good friend of Link’s. The man (who we all know is Kilton) tells Faith to travel to Satori Mountain and pray at the tree, and she will find a guide there. And that’s where her story begins.

The third playable character is known as “Rise” or “Sunrise”, Riju’s son and the other’s half brother. Also a reincarnation of Ganon, though his storyline revolves around finding a way to stop himself from being overtaken by evil.

His mother insists that he needs to either find his father or his siblings, but he’ll likely have a hard time doing either as the royal family became secretive recluses after the Upheaval, and attempting to find thrm would likely warrant violence. She then recommends seeking out Zelda if anyone, as her whereabouts were likely the save as when Riju had last seen her: Hateno. So then in disguise Rise sets out to find Zelda who promises to assist him in fighting off the evil inside him, but he wound likely need to journey to find specific people and objects imbued with powerful magic.

And I have no idea where this all goes but after you defeat all three storylines a secret fourth story starts with a cutscene in the Depths (which only played a minor role in the first three, lots more time is spent in the sky and in lands just beyond Hyrule’s original borders)

A cloaked figure is seen kneeling at the foot of a small monument, it looks like a grave, with flowers in front of them.

A second figure, which is recognized pretty quickly as a younger Coda (who was seen frequently assisting the others in their own stories) in what looks like a modified Yoga outfit.

They call out “who are you and what are you doing at my father’s grave?”

The figure turns and stands, revealing an older, depressed looking Link. He holds out his hand and a purple ball appears in it. Coda takes it and is granted to Autobuild ability.

As it turns out Coda is also a twin, the twin children of Kohga. Their brother Kash is a staunch traditionalist and wants to run the clan just like hybrid father did. Coda on the other hand sees that this is a fruitless endeavor and wants to help the world, not harm it.

In their exploration of the depths Coda finds an ancient monument claiming to tell the story of his the endless cycle started, and how it can only end the exact way it began.

It also indicated that what remained of the gloom was coming from a specific source, though what it was is anyone’s guess. So Vida begins to build and research, eventually meeting the cast and helping them along.

However in the final battle of the fourth route the master sword shatters.

It is revealed at the end that the source of the power for evil was a tomb hidden in the depths, which all 4 character have heard calling out countless times.

The evil beast thing raises its head once more and they tear open the coffin to find a large sword.

Coda takes the sword and plunges it into the demon, which destroys it and in its wake the sword shimmers and shifts into the form of an unconscious man.

Everything fades to black, credits roll.

And there’s so much I didn’t even have a good spot to put in—like a certain Zora sneaking into Pyrah’s laboratory to de-age her best friend so he won’t die a million years before her

Or the fact that certain monsters gained (or re-gained) sentience after the Gloom retreated to the depths and now there’s entire Lynel and ‘Blin societies and the conflict between the ones who want to work with the Hylians and the ones who still want war is a huge plot point

Or that at one point I turn Koltin’s entire existence into a Chekhov’s gun and allow Faith to commune with nature spirits and call upon his protection to OBLITERATE a massive pile of enemies

#totk

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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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OK KO Let's Be Heroes Halloween Review: Parents Day and Monster Party (Patreon Review by Emma Fici)

Happy halloween all you happy people! It's finally the crux of spooky season as we finish things off with a spooktacular at one of the many, many, manny, mannny, MANNNY, Mannnny, mannnnnyY, mAnNnNnNnNnY, man hey nony nony and a fuck you zaslov shows removed from HBO Max this year, courtesy of my pal Emma Fici. Is WBD and the regime before it being awful to this show the reason she commissioned this? No, I simply suggested it since she had me cover Ghoul School earlier this month and the timing couldn't be more perfect and threw in a surprise bonus episode entirley of my own volition. Is it a nice bonus that I both get to spotlight a show I genuinely love with a lot of my heart that got a raw deal and get to throw more shade at a company i've gone from genuinely loving and respecting to hoping badly gets taken out asap.

So let's watch the show under the cut shall we and see what spooky fun we can have as we both meet Enid's parents.. and in the sequel to that ep some old Ghoulfriends Drop by.

I"ve covered OK KO here before, but since this review is aimed at fans of the show, fans of Ghoul School who might not have seen it, and Emma who definitely hasn't seen it, a small intro is in order. Those of you who are familiar can go wait patiently in the pup tent. I have sent a concierge ahead for you

So in short: OK KO Let's Be Heroes! Was a late 2010's Cartoon Network show by Ian Jones Quarterly. Ian is a modern staple in the industry, having worked on venture bros for several years before moving on to Steven Universe, being one of the main creative forces behind the show alongside the show's creator, his friend, creative partner and eventually romantic partner Rebecca Sugar. He also voice acts both in his own show and in Bravest Warriors, another show on the ever escalating pile of shows I need to talk about.

While his other work is excellent, again the guy was the story editor for steven unvierse that should say enough on it's own, OK KO is really his magnum opus. It's a clear labor of love that naturally got shit on by cartoon network for the crime of having to premire earlier because HBO Max hadn't happened yet and being an action show on a network trying to stamp those out at the time, though given what we've seen with the reign of he who sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms, that woudl've been MARGINALLY better at best. My point is the show had a lot of love put into it, a passionate fanbase, vibrant animation and a wonderful premise we'll get to in a moment.. and got shat on for it. I try to be a forgiving person, but this is one thing I haven't quite let go for damn good reason.

So what's this show about anyway? Well it's simple and it's not: the world of OK KO is a world of heroes and villians, of any and all kinds, with most trying to be the best like no one ever does.. and many running buisnesses out of a strip mall, Lakewood Plaza Turbo. It's here we enter our title character: K.O., a small child of 6-10, which is how this show does ages, and it's every bit as hilarious and stupid as it sounds. He's the son of Carol, formerly Silver Spark of, the local Avengers/JLA/ JSA/Justice Pals/New Justice Team Equilvent, P.O.I.N.T. who now runs a ladies fitness dojo.

Wanting to be the best like no one ever was, KO seeks a job at Gars Bodega, ran by Carols old friend who still nurses an embarassing crush on her Mr. Gar, basically if Mike Haggar had cool shades and used to be a luchador instead of a WWF style wrassler. After some trials, trivales and Carol asking nicely, KO joins the Bodegamen becoming friends with the other far less motivated workers: Egotistical, buff, hannah barbera style alien with teleknesis that makes the old sound effect rad and Naruto style emo ninja enid.

In addition to the normal stuff: running the counter, mopping the deck which is navy for floor, and stocking boxes, they also reguarly have to fight the evil Lord Boxman, played by my dad and yours Jim Cummings who sadly isn't in these episodes, who regularly sends his stupid robot children to fight our heroes and wants to destroy the plaza because it's there. No really he can't stand the fact there's a hero place next door and has an entire episode going into withdrawls becaues he can't attack them for a day lest his investors drop him. Yes he has investors. Yes this show is wonderful

So now you know the plot there's plenty inbetween there and plenty of depth that really makes the show shine: Sure there's silly shenanigans from taking a genie in a soda bottle to court, to KO impersonating Rad for an episode simply by putting on alien antenna and Rad's nametag.. and Rad forgetting he asked for this leading to a Rad off, to a health week with tons of psas and the bots nursing KO back to health before he punches them while they all smile> This show can be utterly goofy and I love it… but there's also a deep backstory involving why Mr. Gar left point , a mysterious shadowy villian in the background and ongoing arcs.

The characters also undergo noticable and engaging character development: KO starts off fairly naive and while he remains optimstic learns from his mistake and slowly grows as a hero while grappling with his inner darkness.. aka an evil emo tweenager split personality what lives in his head, Rad grows from an obnoxious bro to the genuinelyc arring and kind person he is underneath and Enid slowly thaws her icy heart and lets others in. IT's a show with lots of warmth, character, and worldbuilding and I highly recommend it.

So with all that out of the way we can get to the actual episodes.. which are mostly self contained but I can't help ranting about what I love. They still contribute to Enid's character though, both focusing on who she is and her past and helping shade her in a bit. This first one wasn't requested, but I feel since their the only two episodes set at Enid's house and featuring her spooky family, they belong together. This also has a high possibility of being my last singular episode. Possibly. I might do the other crossovers, more on those later, at some point, but as a whole this series deserves it's own full on review which I intend to do I just have to finish venture bros and take care of a few patreon unlocked retrospectives first. But with how little time I have this may come before the amphibia review. Anyways onto the episodes!

Family Day

It's Family Day at the Plaza and Ko is so excited he had to be put in his car seat

Like even for 6 that's a lot.. though that's also the joke so touche Ian. Touche. Basically everyone in the Plaza Brings their parents to visit. The subtle joke that we see Drupe and Ms Mummy's mom, a sentient strawberry and a sentient mummy whose mom's somehow human because this universe found some way to make Tanis parentage even more confusing, despite neither working here at this point. Drupe just loiters outside for now and Ms Mummy lives in the back rooms. And of course as Carol points out she's here every day.

Still K.O.'s excited to meet his best friends parents and we do indeed quickly meet Rad's awkward parents, Ofrang and Theodosia. As I found out looking into Ian, Theodosia is named after his grandmother, Theodosia Okoh, who to my shock lived quite the life. She was a ghanian school teacher who designed the Ghana flag, became the first chair of the Ghana Hockey association and had a stadium named after her, and if I rmemeber right was the basis for Nana Fua, with both the Pizzas and Rad's family being based on Ian's experience as a first generation son of immigrants. As such Ofrang and Theodosia use blorp a lot and frequently embarass their son (and only rad everyone else knows their dope) with their talk of ray guys…

NO really they refrence this joke exactly. .. why did this show only run three seasons? This is a nice moment for Rad though. While he is frequently embarassed by his parents and grumbles with introducing them…. he still told them Parents day was happening, brought them and introduces them to KO. Keep in mind Rad at this point is in the politiest term possible "a fuckboy" who hangs out with a giant teenage baby and a walking armpit, which both sums up wht they are and their personalites. While KO's shown he has a heart beneath the air of obnoxious douche he puts on, it usually has to be dragged out of him. But here he brings his dorky awkard parents without any reservation, at most is exasperated in that sterotypical teen boy way. For him that's a lot. There's no ego or boasting, no Recess style attempt to replace his parents with cooler parents. Bringing his parents to the event is a low bar, sure, but the fact he cleared it without needing an entire episode to says a LOT.

No the one who didn't bring her parents is Enid, which does make sense: Enid is intensely private, with her pasts with Elodie (her best friend/possible giflriend who abandoned her for a shot at the big times and insulted her) and Rad himself (Who she had a crush on.. and who totally fucked it up by being an obnoxious cloud of axe bodyspray on the advice of aformentiond armpit and genetically modified baby), only coming out thanks to Elodie visting (Enid kicked her ass all over the plaza, though tthe two later properly reconcile next season. More on that when I get there some day), and Cupid forcing the issue respectively. Cupid in this universe is buff and dope as fuck by the way. I didn't NEED to mention that.. but I wanted to so here we are.

Enid claims their on a mission, nopes out of her shift (with Rad hilariously going "We have shifts?", as the show is not afraid of poking fun at itself), and thus KO and Rad decide to do the responsible thing.. and stalk their friend to her house to find out what she's hiding.

That would be unsettling.. if it wasn't so hilariously done with KO casually telling his mom "We're gonna go spy on enid" with a simple Kay from carol and Rad's dad giving him a ray gun.

Our heroes tail her in Rad's sweet van. Dendy, KO's stoic best friend his age and presumed future wife isn't in it this time which is weird. Maybe she had a piano recital. What they find shocks them as Enid's house is a mad monster mansion, enid dresses as a witch, and in his EXACT words, Rad tells us her parents are "A Hot Vampire and a Hot Werewolf". Which tells us Rad is bi.. as did the intensely homerotic dance battle that the crew entirely knew what they were doing with earlier in the season. This show is gay as fuck and I love it for that and about 100 other reasons

Naturally the trained ninja catches them spying on her.. but so do Enid's parents, so they get inside and Rad, being rad, naturally asks a bunch of questions about general spooky stuff such as skeletons in the closest to Wil ("We do but we don't like to talk about them") and bats in the belfry ("I do hang up there sometimes" ). Rad is back to being the shitlord we know and love and Enid can't stand it for understandable reasons. The boys even get invited to dinner, but not before meeting Enid's brothers boris and Icky, a frankenstien and a pumpkinhead respectively. Now you may be asking how the hell any of this works given Bernard's a Wolf, Wil's a Vampire, and their children are none of those things. And that's kind of the point. Sometimes the show has iron tight canon.. and other times it's world runs entirley on nonsense with little to no explination. It's part of it's charm: it knows when to properly explain shit and when to just have things be delightful cartoon nonsense, like the sun being a sentient being with sunglasses you can surivive being thrown into.

So the dinner is naturally our adorable monster couple showing off Enid's baby pictures.. and her dancing in a pizza for no reason while she prays for death btu death won't come. Meanwhile some ghosts hide bellow and decide they aren't getting enough attention so they plot to attack.

Naturally KO being a baby boy baby lets slip Enid's a ninja and her parents are again it, as "Ninjas aren't scary". And it's.. honestly hard to watch despite you know… it being two monsters complaning about their daughter being an anime ninja. While this is more hiding your career than say a sexuality or something, it comes off that way, with Enid being utterly terrified her parents know. Granted the most the two do is not be happy with it, but it's still sad to see two people who were perfectly happy turn on their daughter in an instant.. not too harshly but just enough.

Thankfully the ghosts posses her friends.. which usually isn't a godo thing but having to fight these two idiots not only shows off JUST how powerful B and Wil are… but allows Enid to say screw it, go into ninja mode and summon jutsu a giant shadow monster that whollops their asses in the most terrifying way possible, while Wil finishes the job by swallowing their souls.. and spitting them out. I mean the ghosts are their guests. Can't kill them and the most they did was run arround and do shenanigans. Their fine. They know not to fuck with Wil now.

What's nice though is that while , naturally Enid's parents now see Ninjas can be scary, the real nice line is them bemonaing how they coudl've been so "ignorant". I often forget tha tline but it's the thing that makes this episode work. Without it it just comes off as "oh well your talent is like us we like it now" and more them realizing they were wrong to not only not see it could be.. but to not let their daughter live their life. Totally cool with her being bi though. I mean it's been on her bike for ages, they know. Also she brought her girlfriend home so it's kind of a big sign. They hug, Enid decides to invite them and we ge ta suprisingly nice moment from Rad, who admits he was laughing sure, as he puts it "you know I express myself in the most obnoxious way possible" but he related, also being embarassed by his parents. It was in good fun. And Enid invites the two to visit some time.. you know when their invited and not following her home. That's creepy. Stop it. Happy end for all.

Monster Party

So we've come to the series halloween episode , one of two but the other I may save for th efuture, the full series review or just whenever. And with this we need to talk about the shows crossovers.

See crossovers don't happen a ton these days and when they do their with shows that are both on at the time or are in the same universe, like Steven Unvierse's classic crossover with uncle grandpa that should not have worked but is one of the series funniest episodes, or Milo Murphy's Law season 2 opening crossover with Phenias and Ferb… which hopefully will get it's own with hamster and gretel. Please.. I fucking need this please.

So it makes OK KO's crossovers stand out: Ian didn't entirely avoid contemperary crossovers, as Rad showed up on the shortly lived and underated Mighty Magiswords (ANOTHER victim of the Zaslav curse) for what ended up being it's finale, and Season 2 had the epic and worth it's own review Crossover Nexus, with KO teaming up with Garnet, Reboot!Ben Tennyson and GO!Raven to stop a generic villian and save CN City.. yes from those old promos.

But that last bit is what really defines Ian's crossovers: Ian goes for what he WANTS to crossover with no matter how weird it is often going back to the very begingings of cartoon network. As such KO met captain planet and WOULD have met Space Ghost had it not been for the tragic passing of George Lowe and Martin C Crocker, and later met Sonic the Hedgehog, a crossover that took until season 3 to get through Sega but thankfully happened. Maybe sonic MOnth next yeah hmmm? He even provided a finale to his early webcomic RPG World despite now resenting the thing, finding a healthy way to end it and give his main character Hero closure.

So while this crossover was a nice suprise, in the context of the show it's not. The real shock is that he pulled this off: that despite being in an era of Scooby Doo where they constantly tried to act like real monsters didn't exist, they let Ian do a whole episode on characters who surely did. Granted part of it was likely that Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy are absent. The former two get mentioned offhand, and the latter is naturally persona non grata, but at least gets a spirtual mention as Rad does his own version of the scrappy rap. It's still amazing though as unlike the other crossovers which are just "our heroes happen to end up in a crossover and it's fun and stuff", this one, while having some small elements of that, weaves the girls into Enid's backstory. Had the show continued they could've shown up AGAIN based on this ep alone. It's one thing to have a crossover it's another to weld them to your universe but Ian got away with it and made it look flawless. Well almost. The episode has issues but makign the Grimwood Girls a part of Enid's backstory and old friends of hers isn't remotely one of them.

As for how our old friends get in here, it's fairly simple: Enid's enjoying a day off when her parents announce her old Ghoul School friends are visiting. They told her but well.. she was on her phone which i'd call a stupid teen sterotype.. but as a grown ass man I also often miss important stuff being on my phone or tablet, so fair play.

Enid is actually happy about it, only put out because she's in her day off clothes, and talks to Rad about it as she was already facetiming him. KO is also there hiding in Enid's pot, although given he's with Boris and Icky I theorize he was hanging out iwth them as he's everyone's friend, and just so happened to hear about Enid's old friends.

The show also does a good job explaning why despite being a friend of the girls Enid wasn't in the movie without her feeling forced into the backstory.. by simply using Enid's own backstory: Enid was at Grimwood before the film, but not being happy bein ga witch, she transfered to Lakewood where she could be her ninja self, and as Ashly Burch so brilliantly delivers it "Met the people who ruined my life, including your stinky butt". A mixed bag.

Rad HAS evolved to the poitn he's not fucking shit up intentionally.. but he still fucks shit up, bringing up how it'll be a shock Enid isn't a witch and get sin her head so we naturally get a "character pretends to be what their not episode".. which is EASILY the weakest part of this whole thing. Like even if they call her their witch, anyone whose seen Ghoul Schools knows these girls: Their acceptable, loving and kind. They'd be fine if she was a Ninja as it ends up bearing out. They accepted a 20 something jughead clone, a great dane and a smaller great dane who raps. They can accept a Naruto Ninja. So there's no real supsense or anything. Not only that as KO says

Enid has grown past needing to hide from people or being open with people, so this plot really dosen't work and feels like it was plotted out a season ago before the POINT Prep arc crystalized how far she came as a character.

Yet the episode works for the same reason the film did despite it's own flaws: The Girls. The Grimmwood Girls are every bit as kind, lovely and welcoming as they were int heir own movie and we get the same amount of spooky fun. Their older now which fits and also gives us ages for the older girls: mid-middle school, probably 7th or 8th grades as their slightly taller than enid in a flashback, which is done in the style of ghoul school, so likely when Enid was in 6th grade since most of her drama happened in 8th, so Enid either transfered mid-year or during 6th and as we saw the school takes most ages, though given the girls have left it they've either graduated or went on to ghoul high school. Either way I think it's neat. It's still vauge, the show loves vauge ages as we've established, but in a way that's easy to figure out. The Girls designs aren't touched much though, still looking like their iconic outfits just teenage versions, except for Tanis and Winnie who are still childrens since they were only 4 or 5 in the original. Elsa gets the biggest change having a longer flowier dress and more normal sandals instead of the platform ones from the movie, but their all great and they adapt to the OK KO art style easily.

One thing that's also barely changed.. is the voice actresses. Incredibly all but TWO Va's returned for this. This is shocking both because only one of them was all that active these days, and because Cartoon Network gladly paid the money for all of them. Not only that the only two that don't return are due to circumstances beyond th eteam's control: Marilyn Scheffler sadly died, so Natalie Palimedes steps up as winnie while Patty Maloney was retired due to injuries discussed last time, and thus Kristin Li stepped in as Tanis. BOth do a great, job and I could only SLIGHTLY tell with Tanis and still had to look up who was replaced. Susan Blu, Pat Musick and Russi Taylor all return, all stepping back into their old rolls like the 80's were yesterday. Russi in paticular was INCREDIBLY lucky as she sadly passed on the year after this episode aired. It shows her talent that much like Teen Donald that same year, you coudln't tell how bad her health was and her delivery was as good as ever. I truly miss her and i'm greatful she got to play Phanty one last time.

The five characters feel like they never left us, being just as joyful, full of puns and happy. The episode works so well because while Enid was rectonnced into the group, she serves as as stand in for us: someone who hasn't seen these girls for a very long time and are utterly happy to see their old friends again, vibrant as ever with all their old quirks, sibella's hair cape and winnie using all fours in tact

We also get to see the girls be badass, as clearly like many of us Ian wasn't really happy with how the whole last act went down, and shows just what the girls are capable of after years of extra honing of their powers with the episodes best scene: the monster showcase, with the girls deciding to show off all their powers. Their funny, charming and entirely badass: Winnie makes a replica of Michealangelos david in seconds with her claws tazzmanian devil style, Tanis casually reads while lifting up Enid's Parents Doom buggy WITH Ko and Iggy inside with ONE strand of her hair, phanty posses Ko for a sec and makes him do a jig, and Elsa shocks herself with a kite

Sibella easily wins the show though, revealing that in addition to her old bat form she can now create a SWARM of bats, usese them to create a stage mid air and dances with a gentleman also madeo ut of bats.. before going all red eyed and fangy and eating his head whole

Like she was always the strongest of the group, but god damn. Also Phanty is just.. so fucking enamored the whole time. I didn't think i'd be shipping these two but here we are.

While KO chastises Rad for hecking up… though he's in Jail so he's thankfully been punished for his hubris, it's a whole runner, Enid tries doing a spell but it's been so long since she tried magic, she can't remember them and brings a tree to life.. that eats the children.

Enid is forced to admit her shame.. and while against his plot dosen't work for me the resolution is as obvious.. as it is Grimwood. The girls are not only utterly HAPPY for enid being a nInja.. but always knew, her having dropped her manga in said flashback which we go back to and all it getting out of Phanty is a "oh that makes sense" before they all smiled. THey love enid for Enid not being a witch just as they love scrappy for scrappy and not being a dope ass rapper. They all hug.. then kick a tree's ass as a team. Seriously give these girls a spinoff I beg of you. i get Warner isn't making good decisions but come the fuck on. Phanty posseses it, elsa pries the kids out, and enid uses her shadow possesion jutsu to stop the tree while Sibella rescues the girls and swallows the tree's soul, all cuimlating in rad arriving from the moon in time to lay out rhymes. All in all a fantgastic episode> is it perfect. No but can it entirely coast on reuniting all these amazing characters and having a ton of heart and charm just like the original film? Hell yeah. Consider joining my patreon, follow for more reviews, thanks for reading.. and Happy Halloween!

#halloween #scooby doo #ok ko let's be heroes #ghoul school #grimwood girls #phantasma #sibella #tanis #winnie #elsa frankenteen #enid #radicles #KO

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penig · 2 years

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So, van Helsing has arrived in Dracula Daily at last and...I’d forgotten he signed his name with alphabet soup after it, which is disconcerting, as a Fortean.

It is a truism, among the loose amalgamation of People Interested in Weird Stuff referred to collectively as Forteans, that people who sign Ph.D. after their names are full of crap. Because, if you look at the Fortean literature, people will write, for example, books about UFOs and sign their names Ph.D., and the Ph.D. is in astrophysics, which, sure, sounds legit. But when you then read the book, it’s all about evaluating eyewitnesses testimony, interviewing eyewitnesses, etc., and not about anything related to astrophysics, at all. A Ph.D. in Shakespeare may throw interesting highlights on a supposedly scientific investigation into hauntings in Stratford-on-Avon, but does nothing to provide solid ground on scientific questions like, What is a “ghost” exactly, and how would we prove we had one, if we did? In such a case, the Ph.D. is appended to the signature as a boost to the author’s self confidence: I’m poking my nose into damned data, but I’m smart and I can prove it, see?

This is not to say that Ph.Ds are crap in and of themselves. They are not. Ph.Ds and Ph.D. candidates do loads of valuable work. But when I mentioned this truism to a Ph.D. holder he laughed and said it was exactly correct, because all a Ph.D. proves is that you successfully defended your thesis. Lots of people do it all the time. Sometimes they do it with brilliant reasoning and deep knowledge, sometimes they do it through stubborn piling of fact on fact, sometimes they do it by knowing what the people judging their thesis will be swayed by and making their presentation accordingly. And if you gave your thesis on the architecture of Moorish Granada or the cranial structure of field mice, it’s of limited use to you in other areas of interest. When writing for a professional publication within their field, it’s appropriate to put the relevant alphabet soup for each contributor to the paper with their names, but in correspondence or when writing for popular publications or outside your field, a simple Dr. will suffice.

(And if a person who has earned a doctorate wants to be addressed as Dr., for pity’s sake, address them as Dr.! Recent kerfluffles about who is and isn’t allowed to use the title are cooked up out of whole cloth as a cover for racism and sexism: far too many women and people of color have had to fight far too hard to get their correct titles used, through the years, to go inventing new rules now and pretend it’s not about excluding them.)

The conventions may have been different in Northern Europe at that time, and clearly Stoker intends to impress upon the reader the Renaissance man, super-genius nature of the person who is going to systematize vampire lore for our beleaguered polycule and build the bridge from “people helpless before unknowable evil” to “vampire hunting team,” but I’m afraid my first reaction to seeing all those letters put down by his own hand is a laughing sigh. Enter the quack. I must set that reaction aside for the sake of the story, but it’s almost as bad as, “I must ask Count Dracula about vampires” for suspension of disbelief purposes.

Perhaps van Helsing was writing on his office letterhead, which had the alphabet soup preprinted on it for official correspondence. Yeah, let’s go with that.

#dracula daily #van Helsing's titles

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factorialsfandoms · 1 year

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“You shouldn’t have come,” with Wars?

(Also originally, no I wasn’t, I just thought they were cool, but I saw the prompt and my brain proceeded to slam me with a story so uh that’s definitely happening now, original intent thrown out the window XD)

(Well, you're welcome or something ^^: Hope you enjoy both the brainworm and this)

I hope this is fun for you! He's not Warriors yet, just Link. Also thank you for the Linked Maze discord server with whom I spent Saturday evening tearing my hair out trying to work out which other character to use for this. Saturday was also the day I unlocked Ravio in HW, so........ Well. That makes it kinda obvious.

I say fun. Some of its not very fun, but we do get to the soft. Angst with ‘it’ll be okay I /promise/’ ending.

Also, given you end up with everyone even like Ganon and Cia playable, I’m using the idea that ‘evil’ characters end up working for the enemy when they fall through the cracks. Namely, Yuga.

AO3 Link as I put it straight there (also lacking editting) for once. Too bouncy about it oops.

The battle had gone atrociously. The Hyrulian army had been decimated, forced into a near rout. While many had made it back to the stronghold - the enemy largely held back by Link, Impa, and their realm-travelling companions - many more had not.

Of those that returned to camp, the screams were still coming from the medical tent.

Link himself had taken few injuries, a thin cut to his arm chief among them. It had been cleaned and bandaged when there were a hundred better things for even the medic’s runners to be doing, and then he had returned to his tent.

It was raining, but not properly, just occasionally speckling on and off.

Somehow, it was worse than a downpour.

Even Proxi was exhausted. Link helped her tuck in to a little nest in a basket he carried for her, and waited for her to sleep.

The day had been... It had gone so so so very wrong.

They had been expecting Wizzro. Instead they had found a pale man with purple scarf and bright orange braids - a new lieutenant whose name nobody had quite caught as he rained hell down upon them all.

Somehow, somehow, Link needed to find a counter, some way - any way - to defeat this new opponent.

He twisted and turned upon the bed, trying and trying to think of something.

He could think of nothing, nothing but the words that had been jeered in his face as he oversaw the bloodbath and following retreat.

“You could end this,” the lieutenant had said. “All you’d have to do is let me take you to Cia, and this would all be over.”

Link had not, of course, but now...

Now it really did seem like there was no other way; had Ravio not appeared with a giant bomb when he had, Link doubted that he and Impa would have been able to get away.

Or convince the others to leave them.

And if there was no other way...

Cia terrified Link. Everything about her made his body recoil in horror, every moment spent listening to her another terrifying thing. He knew this, he did, he was afraid to his very soul.

But he was also the Hero of Courage.

And the Hero of Courage would let nothing so tame as fear keep him down.

In almost a daze he pulled his boots back on. There was no point in armour, not now, and he dared not bring his scarf. Instead he threw a dark cloak over his nightmare, and stepped out into the rain.

Mud splashed up his bottoms and rain dripped through his cloak as he walked through the miserable weather. The screams of the dying in the medical tent got louder as he walked past it, then faded away once more. Still he kept walking - past the pile of bound corpses, and onto the gate.

And then beyond the gate, the guard caring much less for people leaving than entering, especially when it was night but not too late.

Beyond the gates... Which way now? He paused, and looked, trying to judge. His heart shied away from returning to the battlefield, though he was fairly sure it was the only way to Cia’s own stronghold.

Nothing for it, then; that way he would have to go.

"Mr. Captain, Sir!"

Link flinched and turned; there was only one person who would address him so, especially yelling so late at night.

"Ravio."

The man, in a paler robe as nightwear but still wearing the strange rabbit mask, ran up to him, before kneeling over panting, "golly! You sure do move fast, Mr. Captain, Sir! Nearly thought I wouldn't get to you, but if there's one thing this merchant is good at, it's running!'

Dread swirled a little in Link's stomach. Being awake so late was wildly out of character for the rabbit-masked world traveller. Either he had been out helping in the medical tent until late - horrifically likely - or something had gone horribly wrong. Likely both.

“What’s wrong?” Link asked, a little fear clawing at his throat. An attack? Worse? He could not smell smoke, but camp was always so bright he would not see a small fire.

“Nothing, nothing,” Ravio waved his arms, seemingly realising his mistake. “I just saw you out, and was worried!”

Because of course the one time he wanted to get away, someone had noticed enough to be worried. The one time Link tried to do the right thing, and some world-hopping merchant was going to try to stop him.

Never mind. It would be simple enough to send him away, surely? Ravio had a decent head on him, but tended to be as flighty as the animal whose mask he wore. He fought well enough, the trained medics sang the praises of his assistance, but the man always shied as far from conflict as he could get away with. Just tagging along because world-travellers had nowhere else to go, it seemed.

"Then you shouldn't have come here," Link said, trying to mask frustration in being gentle. "I have work to do, and you should be asleep."

There was a long pause before Ravio reached out, voice dropping nearly an archive as he took on a far more serious tone, "no, sir. With all the respect, I really think I should have."

"Why?" Link snapped, frustration boiling over. He pulled his hand away from where Ravio was reaching towards, pulling them out of range. "So you can watch me fall, too? Haven't I done enough?"

Even with the hand out of reach, deceptively spindly fingers found their way to rest on Link's arm. Link screamed at himself to pull away, to just run and finish his task.

Instead he froze, not looking, just waiting.

The fingers rubbed gently for a moment, barely detectable through Link's armour. Still he waited, tensing with every moment.

"You're giving up," Ravio said, quiet now, the same serious tone as before in all his words.

"I'm not-"

"You are." Ravio shuffled a step closer, now holding onto Link's arm. The joint of every finger was white, and still Link could barely perceive it. "Don't lie to me, sir; I've seen it before."

Link tore his arm away. "I'm not giving up; I'm ending the war. She wants me! She only wants me, if we give her that, give her what she wants-"

"It won't work," Ravio did not move closer, just tilted his head to the side and fiddled with his sleeves. "It never does, Mr. Captain, Sir. She’ll just be using you, or get rid of you, and she’ll keep coming back for more.”

Some part of Link knew that the words were true, but how could he accept them? The rest of his mind fought back against them, screaming and agonised and certain there must be something - anything - he could do. He was their Hero, he had to save them. One way or another.

Even if it meant handing himself over, at least they would live. At least... At least the blood would stop. It would, wouldn’t it? It had to.

Gently, gently, Ravio gathered up Link’s hands. Only looking down to scold him did Link discover they were shaking.

But it was not only Link’s hands - Ravio was shaking too.

“My Hilda - my Best Friend,” Ravio’s voice trembled a little. “She was promised that if she just surrendered, just did what they said, that they would save our world.”

Despite everything, Link listened; how could he not, when one of his soldiers was speaking trying to... He was not sure what Ravio was trying to do, only that it was something.

“Do you want to know what happened?”

No, Link did not.

Still he nodded his head.

“He used her. To capture another World’s Zelda, and to manipulate their Link. He exploited her desperation and destroyed her kingdom and her life, and once Ganon was resurrected he left her and our people to die. And I,” a small sob broke through from beneath Ravio’s mask. “I could do nothing but run and hide and keep the Hero alive and hope that he could save something - anything. I thought... I thought I’d lost her. And it was nothing but Mr. Hero and Miss Zelda’s kindness that saved us in the end... So please, Mr. Captain, Sir, please don’t do that to me. My little bunny heart can’t take it, not again.”

“It won’t be the same,” Link promised. “We know what Cia wants, once she has me it will be fine. I can get her to send you home, or Lana can do it, and it’ll be okay.”

“Will it?” Ravio snapped, the tears dripping out from beneath his mask now. “Will it? She wants the Hero. Will she stop with just you? Or, will she come for Mask and Tune? The heroes of the realms we stepped into? Mr. Hero? ... Me? Why would she stop with just you, Mr. Captain, Sir? And even if she does, what of you? What will she do to you?”

“But-”

Link hesitated - but what? What was it that he was objecting to? If it would keep everyone safe then did it matter what Cia did to him? She could have him in any way she wanted, so long as the others were safe.

"How about this?" Ravio’s hands tugged at Link’s, even as he continued to cry. "We head back to camp and get some sleep. Cia will still be there in the morning, and we can have a think about this in the light of day. That sound alright to you, buddy?"

Buddy. Friend. Something in Link’s mind caught on the word - and with it the entire suggestion. He found the tears streaming from beneath Ravio’s mask, watching them with a little confusion before reaching out.

“Buddy?”

His fingers brushed against Ravio’s face, and a strangled noise was extracted from both of their throats. Like a damn broken he threw his arms around Ravio’s neck, clinging hard as he tried to squeeze the medic’s pain away.

“Shhh,” Ravio’s attempts to comfort caught on his sobs. “Shhh, I’ve got you. Shhhh.”

With some of the shakes out of time with the crying, Link suddenly realised that he was crying too.

Soon enough Link found himself sat on the bed in Ravio's tent. He was wrapped up in one of Ravio's spare rabbit robes, soft as it was obnoxiously purple, and then a few blankets wrapped around that. Between his hands was a mug of hot chocolate - free of charge, just this once! - warming up something he did not even realise was cold. Ravio himself was bimbling around, fussing with the blankets and making more warm drinks, and changing the bandage around the scrape along Link’s arm. The giant rabbit mask was placed under the bed, showing off the dark hair, soft features, and green eyes of the man.

Link let him, still feeling a little too shaky to pull away. The proof of his weakness was already staining Ravio’s nightshirt, though the medic seemed almost unaware of it.

Eventually, with Link a little calmer, Ravio sat himself on a small folding chair, clearly stolen from elsewhere in the camp.

“Soooo,” Ravio began, his body not nearly as relaxed as his posture implied. “You feeling any better, buddy?”

Link tugged the blanket a little tighter and did his best at his winning, hero smile, “of course; sorry for scaring you out there. Won’t be happening again. If there’s anything I can do to make it up for you, and for you to keep this quiet, I’d be much obliged.”

“You sure?” Ravio’s entire body screamed his (very justifiable, very correct) doubt. “You’re looking a little pale. I know you can’t be bothering everyone else with your injuries, not when you’re the hero and you’ve gotta be all tough and strong, but you can stay here the night. I’ve helped Mr. Hero out often enough, I can keep an eye on your arm for you.”

Ravio wasn’t just talking about Link’s arm, and Link knew it too. He didn’t want this, didn’t want to be watched like he couldn’t be trusted, not when he’d worked it all out and perfected his plan.

“It’s fine. Sorry to bother you, again. I’ll be out of your hair soon.”

And yet at the same time... Link’s hands tightened around the cup, and he tucked himself further into the soft fabric of the hooded robe and the mound of blankets.

“No bother, none at all!” Ravio waved insistently, nearly knocking himself from his chair. “So long as Mr. Captain, Sir, is a-okay, I’ll be just fine! Gambling isn’t quite like trading, you know? But I make money either way.”

Link did not even want to think about the headache a gambling ring was going to cause him; very pointedly he ignored the new information, and continued sipping at the hot chocolate.

They sat quietly while they drank, Link savouring the taste of it. He may not have known Ravio long, but it was still likely to be the last drink he had among friends. Ravio was being so good to him, bringing him back and warming him up, that Link only worried more; he knew logically that so many of his men were good people, but to see it proven time and again?

It only made it more dire that he protected them. Before anything dire happened again.

But Mask, Tune... Ravio’s point had been correct; she was obsessed with the Hero, not just with him. How could he protect them, too? He needed to give her what she wanted, desperately so, before she did any more harm.

But how could he stop her?

Maybe if he gave her something extra, something like... Something like...

“Hey Buddy?” Ravio’s voice cut across his thoughts. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Getting yourself hurt isn’t going to help anyone,” Ravio replied. “No matter what you give her, she’ll always want more, and even if she doesn’t...”

“If she doesn’t?” Link’s eyes narrowed as he watched Ravio fiddle with his sleeves once again.

“Well, she doesn’t seem to have the best control of her underlings, does she?” Ravio asked, fake cheer in his voice before it turned quiet again. “And in the fight... The fighting today...”

Link's mind suddenly clicked, realising where he'd seen the new foe's colours before. It explained... so much. Like how shaken Ravio was. And how he knew the bomb would work - the two shared a world.

“Her new lieutenant? You know him?” he asked, just to confirm.

Ravio nodded, “it’s... how I knew something was wrong... He was the one who...” Ravio gestured vaguely. “And I know he said something to you! And I can’t- couldn’t- Not again, Mr. Captain, Sir... It’s bad enough he’s here. Don’t make me do it again - please, not again.”

Watching Ravio tear up again, sat in his clothes and bundled up all safely, Link could not help but feel terrible. A swirling discomfort only grew in his cavernous chest, even as Ravio managed to sniff back his sobs and scrub the tears from his eyes.

“What I mean is, it won’t save anyone,” Ravio sniffed again. “So please... Don’t destroy yourself for this. It’s not... It’s never worth it. You can’t give her what she wants. You can’t! Even... Even if you don’t care about yourself - goddesses know Mr. Hero never does - then for the rest of us? Can you just hang on a little longer? Please? We’ll get there, and I’ll be with you every step of the way Mr. Captain, Sir, come hell or high water! But if you give up, it won’t mean anything at all.”

Link couldn’t do it, he really couldn’t. Not with Ravio looking so miserable. He put the empty cup down, and offered out his arms. Ravio hesitated, frozen like a rabbit in torchlight, before moving over and accepting the hug.

“It’s okay,” Link tried to promise. “I’m not giving up, I promise.”

“But you’re thinking of it,” Ravio whispered back. “And you’re still trying to."

This time, Link could not deny it.

“I don’t want to,” he said instead. “But there’s no other way.”

“There is,” Ravio squeezed him. “Impa? Shiek? Lana and Darunia and Ruto? Mask and Tune? They’re not going to let her win, not that easily. And I’ll be right here, cheering you along and patching you right up after! You don’t even need to worry about fees - Impa’s got that all covered for you.”

“Ravio...”

“Shh,” the man squeezed him a little. “I’m not done! We’re all here for you. Not because of you - we’re all here because either portals did a tizzy with us or because we want to be or because its our jobs - but for you. You’re our friend. We’ve got your back. So don’t stress too much, buddy, because I’m the best heroic back getter in all of my Hyrule. Along with merchant and layabout, of course. Been doing it nearly as long as I’ve been doing the merchanting thing.”

There was no real way to argue against that, not without hurting Ravio. So Link, still not quite believing all of it, just hugged him tight.

#fanfic #hyrule warriors #lu wars #ravio #hw link #linked universe #using that characterisation so using that tag #ask and answer #mask and tune were going to get a scene at the end but I cut it for silliness sake #tldr seeing the captain missing is scary #seeing the captian in ravio's bed in ravio's clothes is funny #the clothes thing is literally just ravio trying to get link warm and cozy #get him /safe/#ravio is also dragging link to impa in the morning #she'll be making sure he's not wandering off #he'll be okay eventually #and once ganon gets involved the idea isn't workable at all #it'll just take him a while

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headcanonsandmore · 1 year

Text

Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Summary: Tegan Jovanka is thinking about leaving the TARDIS again. But Tegan isn't telling Nyssa everything about why she wants to leave...

Read on FFN. Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘I think it’ll be nice to be back on the farm,’ Tegan said, adding a jumper to the pile of clothes in her bag.

‘So… you’re really planning on leaving, then?’

Tegan ignored the ache in her heart that ignited the moment Nyssa had spoken. The Trakenite was stood at the end of Tegan’s bed, watching the Australian pack her things.

For the last few weeks, Tegan had been finding it more and more difficult. She had been possessed by the Mara a second time and, now, just when she needed relaxation and calm, the TARDIS now had a new occupant; Turlough, the mysterious (and, to Tegan’s mind, deeply suspicious) young man who seemed to make a career out of looking permanently shifty. Nyssa and the Doctor seemed to trust him, but something about the ratty boy made Tegan’s skin crawl.

Her mind permanently on edge, Tegan found herself longing for her parents farm more and more often. Her old life in Australia seemed like a world away, although she supposed it was in a literal sense as well. And now she was packing her bags, fully intending to ask the Doctor to drop her off home whenever he next could.

‘Yeah,’ she said, not looking at the bushy-haired younger woman. ‘Like I said, it’ll be nice. Relaxing, even.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Problem?’

The word came out harsher than Tegan intended as she turned, and her stomach withered with guilt at the way Nyssa seemed to flinch.

‘S-sorry,’ Tegan mumbled. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve-‘

‘Can… can you really not stand me anymore?’

‘Nyssa!’ Tegan exclaimed, shocked. ‘How can you-’

‘It’ll be permanent this time, won’t it?’ Nyssa said, voice trembling. ‘You leaving me. Again.’

Tegan was horrified to see tears trickling down Nyssa’s cheeks. The last daughter of Traken was clearly upset.

‘Oh, Nys…’

Tegan leaned forward and put her arms around the younger woman. She could feel Nyssa trembling with sobs as they sat down on the duvet.

‘I’m sorry, Nyssa,’ Tegan whispered, into the Trakenites ear. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘T-then…’ Nyssa sobbed. ‘Then w-what did you mean it as?’

‘I… I don’t want to leave you. Definitely not permanently,’ Tegan said, quietly, as she stroked Nyssa’s back. ‘But… it’s the Mara. It’s messed up… well, I don’t feel right. I need somewhere quiet I can relax. And I can’t relax on the TARDIS. The Doctor is always bungling into danger; it’ll never be quiet around here.’

‘So… you want to go home? To Earth?’

‘I haven’t seen my parents in a while,’ Tegan said, moving her hands down Nyssa’s sides and giving her a gentle squeeze. ‘It’ll be nice to be back at the old farm; no evil schemes to contend with, no life-threatening dangers. Just me, my parents and a lot of very boring farm animals.’

‘You’re still going, though,’ Nyssa said. ‘Still leaving…. leaving me.’

‘Oh, Nys, I’m not-’

‘It’s fine,’ Nyssa said, and the teetering smile that she gave almost broke Tegan’s heart. ‘I’m… I’m used to it, you see.’

Tegan could feel tears welling up in her own eyes. It was true; Nyssa was used to it. Virtually everyone she had ever known had left her. Her mother, her father, her people, Adric…

And now Tegan was telling her that she was going too.

‘I’m not like you or Turlough, or the Doctor,’ Nyssa said, very quietly. ‘I… I don’t have a home to go back to.’

Without thinking, Tegan cupped Nyssa’s face with her hands, stroking her tears away.

‘Hey,’ she said, softly. ‘I’m not leaving you, Nys. Don’t ever think that.’

‘Would… would you like me to come with you?’

Tegan’s hands fell limply from Nyssa’s face, and the Australian could feel her stomach spike with anxiety.

‘I…’ she stammered, feeling her heartrate increase unpleasantly. She could already feel her stomach beginning to turn to lead, as the familiar feeling took hold. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Oh,’ Nyssa said, clearly startled by Tegan’s sudden change of mood. ‘I’m sorry, that was rude of me.’

‘No,’ Tegan said. ‘It wasn’t. It’s just… well…’

Tegan’s eyes dropped, and she found herself fiddling with a loose strand of the duvet. How could she possibly explain this to Nyssa? The younger woman was too sweet and too kind to understand the culture Tegan had grown up in. A culture that was surely very different from the kindly world of Traken.

Nyssa’s hand came to rest on Tegan’s cheek, soft as silk.

‘Tegan… what’s wrong?’

‘I’m… I’m ashamed.’

The words came out as barely a whisper, her voice quavering as she spoke.

‘Ashamed?’ Nyssa repeated. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Please don’t make me say it,’ Tegan pleaded, the words barely able to escape her mouth. ‘You know why. You saw how the Mara brought things out of me… things I keep hidden…’

‘I… I don’t follow,’ Nyssa said, her voice concerned. ‘The Mara brings forth deep desires, but I don’t see what that has to do with any shame you may have…’

Tegan clenched her hands again, unable to look Nyssa in the face.

‘The Mara…’ she said, slowly. ‘When they possessed me, I… I became obsessed with you, Nyssa. I pinned you up against a wall and talked about how much fun we would have if you stayed. And then I… I called you a nun because you didn’t… you didn’t…’

Tegan slowly stopped talking, her hands clenched into the duvet. Guilt mixed in with the shame bubbling in her stomach.

‘Tegan, I still don’t follow-’

‘I’m in love with you.’

The words were out of Tegan’s mouth before she could stop herself.

Who was she kidding? She had been in love with Nyssa since the moment they had met, back on Logopolis. And, every day that she had spent with Nyssa, her feelings for the woman had only gotten stronger and stronger. No wonder the Mara had discovered that about her so easily.

Nyssa’s hand did not move from Tegan’s cheek, but the younger woman seemed to freeze slightly.

Tegan couldn’t bare to look Nyssa in the face, sure that she would surely only see confusion and shock there. The last daughter of Traken was a kind, sweet person, so she wouldn’t be unpleasant. But Tegan was adamant that her feelings were not returned. Maybe it was better this way. Nyssa now knew why Tegan needed some time away, and Tegan wouldn’t have any doubts as to the one-sided nature of her love. It hurt, but… it was for the best.

‘But… how can love be shameful?’

Tegan looked up. Nyssa was staring at her, eyes wide and confused.

‘On Earth, back in my time… women loving other women isn’t… well, it’s not accepted,’ Tegan said, quietly. ‘It’s illegal; back home, I can’t get married to a woman, or even hold hands with a partner in public without fear of getting beaten up. I saw how people were like me were treated when I was growing up. My mum and dad were supportive, but they were clearly terrified that they’d find me beaten to a pulp on their front porch one day. It… it scared me, knowing how others could hate me. Like it was shameful just to be myself. That… that I was shameful.’

‘But you’re not, Tegan.’

Nyssa took Tegan’s hand, and squeezed it, softly.

‘You’re wonderful,’ she continued. ‘You’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met. Oh, Tegan, don’t you ever think that you or your love is shameful.’

‘Nyssa…’-Tegan could already feel her heart aching-‘Please don’t humour me; I-I know you don’t see me the same way-’

‘But I do,’ Nyssa said, her voice as soft and gentle as cotton. ‘I… I love you, Tegan. How could you ever think I don’t? I’ve loved you from the moment we met.’

‘Oh, Nys…’

Tears streaking down their faces once again, the two women hugged. Eventually, their lips met in a soft, gentle kiss. It wasn’t how Tegan had hoped that a potential first kiss with Nyssa would go, but she loved it just the same. It wasn’t classic Hollywood, but it was very them. And that was the important thing.

Eventually, their lips reluctantly parted. Nyssa rested her forehead against Tegan’s.

‘Tegan?’ she whispered.

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you think your parents will like me?’

Tegan gave a weepy laugh, squeezing Nyssa’s hands tight.

‘Nys, if they’re anything like their daughter, they’ll adore you.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! I know this is a little bit angstier than what I normally publish, but I hope you liked it nonetheless!

#doctor who fanfiction #tegan/nyssa #nyssa/tegan #tegan x nyssa #nyssa x tegan #indestructible #heathrow scientific #tegan jovanka #nyssa #nyssa of traken #tw: internalised homophobia #tw: trauma #tyssa

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