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mylo-space · 21 days ago

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Aftermath

Summary: I don't have a particularly creative title or summary for this, but basically: Wukong and Macaque talk after the Lady Bone Demon fight and very quickly realize that they have no idea how to deal with each other. Attempts at conversation are made and, all in all, it goes? definitely not as bad as it could have gone, but that doesn't mean it goes great, either. They're making an effort, but the real MVP here is the rock.

Word Count: 9,407 Posted to Ao3: 2023-07-17

Fighting the Lady Bone Demon had taken far more out of Wukong than he would have ever liked to admit, and it didn’t help that he’d already been pretty tapped from getting the map. After a few hundred years of doing nothing but eating peaches and occasionally training MK, back to back fights were a little more exhausting than Wukong remembered.

Back when he ran with the Brotherhood, it seemed like he could go for weeks on end without ever putting down his staff. Starting fight after fight until they were faced with a full out war against the Celestial Realm, Wukong had felt like he could fight forever, and to think that he’d actually enjoyed it. It was all just so tiring now.

Maybe he was just getting old.

Watching the kid clamber down the mountain with all his friends in tow, Wukong couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. Not that he didn’t love the kid’s company, but after being possessed and still barely recovered from his fight with Nezha, the great Monkey King wanted little more than to sleep for an entire day, possibly a few decades.

Which was why the presence to his left was especially irritating, lurking at the edge of the treeline and the edge of Wukong’s patience. “I thought you left.”

“You assume that a lot, don’t you,” Macaque replied, emerging from the shadows with a smile that put Wukong on edge. Not that it was particularly menacing, it just didn’t sit right with him, the way it tugged at Macaque’s mouth like puppet strings. It’d looked like that for centuries now, but Wukong never got used to it.

“Not an assumption,” Wukong grumbled, “I watched you leave.” He returned Macaque’s smile, hoping it looked just as bitter and uncanny. “Guess you’ve always been pretty good at that, though, huh? Leaving.”

“Learned from the best,” Macaque sneered. “How is it, by the way? Sitting on this mountain all by yourself.” He leaned against a nearby tree and crossed his arms, a routine Wukong was familiar with. Old habits die hard, he supposed, and Macaque never did like having his back exposed. “Is eating fruit for eternity the good life you thought it’d be?”

“As a matter of fact,” Wukong said haughtily, “it’s great, thank you for asking.” He wondered if the memory of peach-scented promises haunted Macaque’s dreams as often as they did his. “How was being the Lady Bone Demon’s puppet?”

Macaque shrugged. “I don’t know, Wukong, how was it?”

“Hey, I was possessed,” Wukong pointed out. “What’s your excuse?”

“I owed her,” was the frustratingly simple reply.

Wukong scoffed. “You owed her,” he repeated. “Was it worth attacking the kid and his friends?”

“If I wanted to hand MK over to the Lady Bone Demon, I would have,” Macaque snapped. “Do you have any idea how many times I had him in the palm of my hand? He offered to walk away with me once!” Then Macaque laughed, a harsh sounding thing that didn’t sound anything like him. “If you hadn’t done such a terrible job of coaxing his powers back out, I wouldn’t have had to push him so hard.”

And, fine, looking back on things, Wukong could admit that Macaque probably wasn’t trying as hard as he could have been. The guy could teleport, and it wasn’t like Wukong was in great shape for a lot of trip. There was no reason Macaque couldn’t have wrapped MK in shadows and opened a portal right to the demon’s lair, especially if Wukong’s selfless little successor was offering himself up.

But Macaque hadn’t done that, which meant that he really had been purposefully incompetent, to some extent. He’d taken on Ao Guang with no trouble at all, but MK managed to slip away? The kid was tough, but Wukong wasn’t ignorant enough to believe that MK could have taken on Macaque powerless, not if Macaque was really going at it.

If Wukong were a little less exhausted, he could’ve found a sense of relief knowing that Macaque wasn’t actually the revenge-fueled drama queen he pretended to be. Still, he had hurt MK on more than one occasion, and that was reason enough to be pissed off. He didn’t have the energy to be angry and grateful. “If you hadn’t been working with the Lady Bone Demon,” Wukong said, “it wouldn’t have been a problem at all.”

Macaque sighed. “I told you, I owed her. I had about as much choice in the matter as you did.” His claws dug into his sleeve almost imperceptibly. “Trust me, I didn’t like it, either. But if I had let it slip that I wasn’t really trying to bring MK back to her, she-” There was a beat of silence, a fraction of a breath where Macaque’s amber eyes betrayed him, lined with the same bone-deep exhaustion that Wukong could feel pulling at his limbs. “It wouldn’t have been great for my health,” he finished.

She would have killed him.

Neither one of them needed to say it, the implication was there. Macaque had to hunt them down, or the Lady Bone Demon would have sent him back to the Underworld the hard way. Wukong feared death without having ever experienced anything close to it, but Macaque… he had real reasons to be afraid. Wukong wasn’t sure what Macaque owed her exactly, what promises he did or didn’t keep, but it was clear the price he would have paid for failure was his life.

The thought made him sick. Even with the centuries of distance between them, Wukong couldn’t stomach the thought of another shallow grave with Macaque’s name on it. “Still pissed about the Samadhi Fire thing,” he grunted. Sympathy aside, Macaque was still an eternal pain in his ass.

“It was either I released Samadhi Fire on the mountain, or I brought the rings back to the Lady Bone Demon,” Macaque said. “Rock. Hard place. And I didn’t have time to wait around while you pretended to get your act together.”

“I had a plan.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Wukong bristled at the accusation, even though it was technically correct. Really, Macaque wasn’t being nearly as vindictive about the whole thing as he could’ve been, but Wukong still didn’t appreciate him pointing out his incompetence. “Well, you didn’t have to dip right after you ruined everything,” he said. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Oh, I ruined everything,” Macaque deadpanned. “Remind me again, how did the Samadhi Fire get inside of Mei? Whose fault was that?” Wukong, rather than justify that with an answer, exhaled sharply and turned away. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You’re pretty smug for someone that took off as soon as things got tough,” Wukong muttered bitterly. “Even if I didn’t have a plan, releasing the Samadhi Fire was a really stupid idea.”

“Kinda like going to fight the Lady Bone Demon on your own,” Macaque countered. “Lot of good that did everyone, getting yourself possessed.”

“Oh, right,” Wukong rolled his eyes, “because you were so much help.”

Macaque raised an eyebrow. “You know, you’ve got a really weird way of saying, ‘thanks for saving the kid, Macaque’. And here I was, coming to check on you.” He huffed out a laugh, so quiet that Wukong almost didn’t catch it. “Serves me right, I guess. Maybe next time you get possessed, I’ll just let you hit him.”

At that, Wukong’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

For a moment, Macaque studied Wukong like a particularly challenging puzzle. He seemed to find whatever he was looking for in Wukong’s expression, because he asked, “How much do you remember about being possessed?”

“Uh-” Truthfully, Wukong hadn’t given it much thought. Hadn’t wanted to, the feeling of demonic power under his skin still sending the occasional chill down his spine. “I mean, it’s a little clearer towards the end there, when MK was snapping me out of it, but the rest is- it’s, um…”

And it occurred to him, suddenly, that Nezha was injured the last time Wukong had seen him. But he was so sure that the prince was in decent shape when he’d left to go fight the Lady Bone Demon. A little worn out from their fight on the train, maybe, but-

“What did I do,” he asked Macaque, hoping that the answer wasn’t going to be nearly as awful as the many possibilities that started swirling around his head.

Macaque shrugged. “Well, the demon rocked Nezha’s shit so hard that it put him in a small crater.” Not the worst he could have done, but Wukong’s stomach still turned itself inside out. It took a lot to bring down Nezha, and the Lady Bone Demon clearly hadn’t been kind with his puppeteered body. “And then she turned you on MK.”

It was blurry, the whole being possessed thing, and part of Wukong had been frustrated about it, at first. Hearing what the demon had done with his body, though, he was almost thankful that he didn’t remember. The brief flashes he could remember would haunt his nightmares enough, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost see MK’s terrified expression before it dropped through the ground.

Through the ground.

“You-” Wukong fumbled with the words for a moment, “so, they followed me, and you-”

“Don’t read into it,” Macaque interjected. “If you got yourself taken out by the Lady Bone Demon, MK was going to be the universe’s only shot at getting saved. No sense in letting her take you both out in one go.” Self-preservation, of course. That was what it always came down to, with Macaque.

Macaque’s motivation for helping aside, it didn’t change the fact that he had saved MK from Wukong. “Where did you send him?” he asked.

“Right to his spicy friends,” Macaque answered. “Er- somewhere close, at least. They were in one of DBK’s little secret hideouts, so I didn’t know the area super well.” He scratched at his neck absently. “Gonna be honest, I do kinda miss that guy, sometimes. And his kid’s a real firecracker.”

Wukong let out a surprised laugh. “Redson? Yeah, uh- yeah. He is.” It occurred to him that he and Macaque weren’t arguing anymore. He thought it’d be weirder, talking to Macaque again, after everything that had happened between them. Everything that continued to happen between them.

The strangeness of the situation wasn’t lost on Macaque, either. If asked why he returned to the mountain, he wouldn’t have been able to give a completely honest answer. The one he’d give would be something along the lines of kicking Wukong while he was down, but the truth was something a little closer to Macaque being incapable of leaving.

Might as well ask an asteroid to leave its orbit. Entirely possible, but never of its own volition. Something would have to hit it pretty damn hard first.

In any case, the banter Macaque had grown used to had long since petered out into something much more familiar and, yet, infinitely more unsettling. This was the closest to civil he’d been with the Great Sage in centuries, and he didn’t hate it as much as he thought he would. He wouldn’t say he was having a great time, but it was… it was kind of nice, talking to Wukong again, if he ignored the steady, phantom throbbing behind his right eye.

“Wukong,” Macaque prompted after a few moments of the king trailing off. If Wukong was anything like he was when they were younger–and he probably was, he never changed much–then getting in his own thoughts about things was going to be more detrimental than anything.

Not that he cared. He couldn’t afford to be pulled into Wukong’s orbit a second time.

“Wukong,” Macaque said again, this time shaking the king from his thoughts. “You’re still hung up about almost hitting the kid, aren’t you.”

“Huh?” Wukong blinked at him for a moment, then scowled. “No.” He crossed his arms, mirroring Macaque’s stance. “What do you care?”

The easy thing to say would have been, “I don’t”. And Macaque almost said it, brushing off the concern entirely, because what did he care? The kids were safe, the city was safe, everyone was safe and everything was fine. Why should Macaque care if Wukong still looked stressed out and exhausted beyond belief? The king wasn’t the only one who walked away from the fight with ice in his veins and a lingering voice in his ear.

And maybe that was why Macaque didn’t say it, knowing how it felt to be so exhausted that it burrowed into him and made a home in his bones. So, “Do you still draw?” was what he said instead, because he was curious, and it’d been a while since he’d seen Wukong’s art.

Wukong opened his mouth to give a scathing retort, then closed it again with a confused stare. Macaque could almost see the words being processed behind Wukong’s blank eyes. “Do I- you…” He shook his head briefly, as though trying to clear it. “What?”

“You know, like, art? Pencil and paper, crayons, markers.” Macaque spoke slowly, as though talking to a toddler, “Do you still draw?”

“No, I heard what you said, I just-” Wukong gave an annoyed huff. “Whatever. Yes, I still draw. Why?” Then he looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do, uh… do you draw, still?”

Macaque snorted. “I never really did. You were always the artist, not me.” He looked around the mountain. “Not gonna find anything to draw with here, though.” Macaque used to know every rock and tree on the mountainside, but after a thousand years of avoiding the place, his memory was a little blurry. “You got a temple or something nearby?”

All at once, the tension from earlier crept its way back into their conversation. “You’re not allowed back in Water Curtain Cave, Macaque.” It wasn’t quite a threat, but it was a very clear warning.

“I’m aware,” Macaque said, and he ignored the pang of hurt. He hadn’t even thought about returning to Water Curtain Cave in decades, but the reminder that he wasn’t allowed bothered him a little more than he thought it would. “I don’t want to hang out in your little hole in the wall, anyway. That’s why I asked if you had a temple nearby.”

The question seemed to register, the anger easing out of Wukong’s shoulders. “Right. Uh…” He jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve actually got a little- like, a house? Nearby. I was probably just gonna head there before I went back to the cave.”

“Great,” Macaque pushed himself off the tree. “Lead the way.”

Wukong gave him a strange look. “And… where, exactly, do you think you’re going?”

“We are going to find your little house in the woods,” Macaque replied easily, “and find you something to do before you combust.”

“I am not-”

“Look, do you wanna go draw something,” Macaque asked, “or do you want to sit here and argue about it for an hour before we go? Because we’re both going, either way.”

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Wukong relented, “Fine,” he waved for Macaque to follow him, “but if you try anything, I’m punting you over the side of this mountain.”

Macaque hummed, following behind Wukong and just to his left. “In your condition? I’d like to see you try.” If he took another two steps forward, they’d be walking side by side, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It’d been far too long since he’d stood at the sage’s side.

“Don’t tempt me,” Wukong warned, “You’re a pretty throwable guy.”

“And you’re a pain in my-” The rest of Macaque’s sentence caught in his throat as a new pain shot through his leg. Not new, really, but Macaque had gotten good at tuning out things that made him uncomfortable, the injury he sustained from his fight with a possessed Wukong included. Unfortunately, a gnarled tree root catching him off balance brought the pain right to the forefront of his mind. “Ah, come on-”

He steadied himself and leaned most of his weight on his right leg, timidly checking the left before taking a few careful steps. Now that the injury had been irritated, it was a lot harder to ignore, especially with the amount of walking he was doing trying to get Wukong home.

Wukong had stopped a few paces ahead of him, watching Macaque with an unreadable expression. “You, uh… you forget how to walk or something?” he asked. “What’s going on over there?”

“Nothing,” Macaque hissed, straightening his gait, just barely keeping the limp out of his steps.

“You sure?” Wukong asked, “Your leg looks-”

Macaque glared at him warily with a clipped, “What about my leg,” daring Wukong to continue his line of questioning. The Sage could hardly acknowledge the damage he’d caused a thousand years ago. There was no way Macaque would get sympathy for the battle they’d fought just a few hours before.

Apparently realizing Macaque wasn’t going to admit the obvious, Wukong’s brow furrowed. “Okay, yeah.” He went back to leading them through the forest. “And you think I couldn’t throw you down a mountain.” Macaque was almost relieved that Wukong picked up the banter right where they left it, unsure of what he would’ve done if the king had kept pressing. “I may be tired, but you’re not doing so hot yourself.”

“I’m doing just fine,” Macaque muttered.

“No, you’re not,” Wukong replied. “You’re definitely not. You’re just better at hiding it than me.”

“I’ve had more experience getting hurt than you,” Macaque pointed out. “We can’t all be made of stone, you know.”

Wukong hesitated for a moment. “Yeah, I… guess not.” Gold eyes trailed back to Macaque. “You holding up okay? Not gonna collapse on me again or anything, right?”

“Relax,” Macaque rolled his eyes, “I might not be made of stone, but I’ll heal fast enough.” Healing would fix his leg fine, but it probably wouldn’t do much for the ragged fur on his right arm, destroyed by the demon’s ice and the fire that had melted it. His sleeve hid it well, but he wasn’t entirely sure that the fur would grow back right, if at all.

Luckily, the fur on his face hadn’t taken too much damage, having not been covered in ice for nearly as long as his arm. It would have been a pain to have something new to hide. Between his ears and his eye, Macaque had enough to cover up already.

With a curt nod, Wukong said, “Good. Because I was not carrying you back to… wherever you live now.”

“Wouldn’t have expected you to.”

Wukong didn’t appear to have a retort, and they fell into a relatively peaceful silence. With the sun going down, most of the animals on the mountain were settling, giving way to the much quieter nightlife. Macaque was sort of grateful, both for the lack of noise and the fact that wouldn’t have to deal with any of Wukong’s subjects.

It wasn’t that he didn’t miss them or anything, because he did, but he couldn’t bear to see their chipper faces.

Maybe another day, assuming he and Wukong weren’t at each other’s throats after this.

Whatever this was.

“Just up ahead,” Wukong said after a few minutes of walking. “I can see the lanterns.” Macaque squinted into the forest, noting the faint glow of firelight in the setting sun. “About time, too. I am tired of being on my feet today. I don’t even think I’ll make it back to the cave tonight, I’ll probably pass out here and fly home in the morning.”

Macaque made a noise of agreement. “I’m probably gonna sleep for a week straight whenever I finally get horizontal.” For the moment, Macaque couldn’t imagine closing his eyes. Not that he wasn’t tired enough, just that he had already felt so close to death again, even lying down with his eyes closed felt like a daunting task.

Wukong chuckled. “I know, right? I already wanted to sleep for a century after getting the map from Nezha. Between fighting the Bone Demon and… well, you,” Macaque hummed in acknowledgement, “I’m pretty wiped out.” He rubbed his arm. “But, weirdly, kinda too wired to sleep. If that makes any sense.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Macaque replied, gently pushing a branch out of his path as he and Wukong entered a small clearing. “Like I said, I’ll probably sleep for a week when I get around to it. Probably won’t be for a while, though.”

The house was a modest looking thing, and it looked old, something from their past that was recognizable. Looking around, Macaque could recall a few memories in this clearing, though everything had looked a little different, then. The house seemed relatively untouched though, aside from a hasty patch job on one of the walls.

Pushing open the door, Wukong immediately told Macaque, “Don’t touch any of my stuff.”

“Not even coming in.” Macaque leaned against the doorframe, looking around what he could see of the house. It was a lot different than he remembered, more modern, a TV and a gaming system sitting across from the couch. It still looked cozy, though, apart from the mess sitting by the wall that stood behind the TV. It looked like whoever destroyed the wall hadn’t exactly cleaned it up before nailing some boards over the hole. “What do you even use this place for nowadays?”

He could hear Wukong shuffling around the house, moving things around, presumably looking for art supplies. “Can’t get electricity to a lot of places on this mountain, and I wanted a place to play videogames. This was the easiest place to get a TV set up.”

Macaque snickered, genuine amusement finding its way into his voice, “Videogames? Seriously?”

“Hey! They’re more useful than you think.” Wukong reappeared with a box of what looked like paint. “Great way to kill time, and the artwork is pretty great, too, if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do say so yourself,” Macaque said. “And I’m sure that it’s full of the corniest pictures known to man.”

Wukong made a flapping motion with his hand, “Yeah, yeah, you’re just jealous ‘cause no one ever made a videogame about you.” Macaque scoffed from his place in the doorframe, but it sounded… not as annoyed as Wukong expected it to. “What?”

“Nothing,” Macaque said, though his grin said otherwise, “It’s just- that’s probably the most you thing I’ve ever heard. Being a fan of your own videogame.”

“It’s a good videogame,” Wukong protested, checking a shelf for any loose paper. He was almost certain that he didn’t have any, and he was lucky he even managed to find the small box of paints, but he was mostly trying to avoid Macaque’s gaze. “MK was just telling me the other day that he used it as training while I was gone.”

There was a thoughtful hum from Macaque. “Is that right?” he asked, and Wukong could hear the sly smile before he even turned around. “Interesting.”

He could see the gears turning behind amber eyes, and put his free hand on his hip to make himself look more stern, preparing to throw the box of paints he’d found if he needed to. “Don’t you do it.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Macaque replied smoothly, inspecting his claws.

“Macaque,” Wukong warned. “Do not make a videogame for MK. You’re not his mentor, I’m his mentor.”

“Well,” Macaque drawled, “I don’t think that’s for you to decide. The kid should get a choice.” He slipped out of the doorway, standing on the porch and just out of sight. “And who knows! Maybe I’ll make just a nice, normal videogame, with no mentoring involved at all.”

Wukong followed Macaque outside. “Hey!” he called. “You can’t- you were just talking about how you can’t draw, you can’t make a videogame.”

Macaque raised an eyebrow at him. “Actually, just because you said I can’t, I think I kinda have to.” He shrugged. “You know, just to spite you.” His gaze caught the box of paints in Wukong’s hand. “No paper?”

“Huh? Oh, uh- no, couldn’t find any.” Wukong lifted the box of paints. “But I found these, so…” He glanced around. “I mean, we could probably paint on a rock, or something.” He jumped the stairs leading up to the house and glanced around the clearing, looking for a decent-sized rock with a smooth enough side to paint on. “Gimme a second.”

“Out of curiosity,” Macaque said from the porch. “Was the kid responsible for whatever happened to the wall? Because I do not remember that being there.”

Wukong laughed. “Yeah, he got a little too immersed in the game, I think. Sandy was telling me about it on the trip.” He grinned in triumph upon finding a good rock at the clearing’s edge. “Got one!” Using his free hand, he rolled the rock a little closer to the house. “Can you grab some water for our brushes real quick?”

“I thought you didn’t want me touching your stuff,” Macaque taunted, though he still disappeared into the house. It was weird, the way Macaque was so different, and yet, eerily familiar in some ways. Like nothing and everything had changed, all at once, and forever ago.

Reaching a hand into his hair, Wukong yanked a couple strands free, effectively distracting him from thoughts. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned two brushes for him and Macaque to paint with and sat down, setting the box of paints next to him. He wondered if Macaque had an idea for something to paint, or if was going in as blind as Wukong was.

Macaque returned with a bowl of water in one hand and two small pieces of wood in the other. “Here,” he said, tossing a piece of wood in Wukong’s direction. “Makeshift paint palette. Plenty of wood laying around from the DIY project in the living room.”

“Yeah,” Wukong sighed. “I’ll probably have to get that cleaned up before I go to bed.”

“Don’t bother,” Macaque said absently, “portaled the rest of it away while I was in there.” Wukong blinked at him. The staring didn’t go unnoticed, Macaque’s brow furrowing. “What? It was in the way.” He plucked a brush out of Wukong’s hand. “You gonna paint, or what?”

Wukong shook himself. “Uh, yeah, I-” He hesitated, watching as Macaque reached for the black paint. “Actually, I’m not sure what to paint.”

“Paint yourself,” Macaque suggested, uncapping the black paint. “It’s your favorite subject.”

“Very funny,” Wukong muttered, though he did rummage through the box for something resembling his fur color. “They never have my color in any of these things. Everything is too orange.”

Macaque pressed his brush to the rock’s surface. “You know how to mix colors, don’t you? I know you never learned how to read, but surely the Great Sage has mastered colors by now.”

“You’re just full of quips tonight, huh,” Wukong said, but he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. “I can read, you know, just not well. Let me know when you’ve learned how numbers work, and we’ll talk about my ability to read.”

“I don’t need to know how numbers work,” Macaque replied. “What part of my life requires me to know anything about math?”

Wukong tsked, “Excuses, excuses.” He pulled a light shade of red to mix with the orange he’d found, the color far too yellow to look like his actual fur. “Language is hard, okay? It changes a lot. But numbers have been the exact same for literally forever, and you’re hundreds of years old.”

“If I can go hundreds of years without learning math,” Macaque said, “then I clearly haven’t needed it.” He frowned at his painting. “You know, I started painting myself because I thought it’d be easy, but I don’t even know if I want to attempt drawing eyes.”

“Eh, just slap a circle on there somewhere and squish it around until it looks right,” Wukong said. “People are mostly circles and rectangles, you know.”

Macaque made a vaguely frustrated noise. “It’s a painting, Wukong, not a sketch. I can’t make any- I can’t make circles.” He tapped his brush against his leg, glancing over to Wukong’s side of the rock. “You’re making this look too easy. I thought you were tired.”

“Not as tired as you, apparently.” Wukong gestured at the crude outline Macaque had made of his own hair. “Like, what is- what is that? A porcupine? Or maybe a hedgehog-”

“You’re hilarious,” Macaque muttered. “You know what? I’m just gonna make it like one of those- whatever they’re called. The cartoons that MK likes so much.”

Wukong turned to look at Macaque. “Dude, don’t even pretend you don’t know what anime is.”

Squinting in concentration, Macaque waved Wukong off with his free hand. “Yeah, anime, whatever.” Another small smile crossed his features. Mischievous, but not malicious. “They make an anime about you, yet? Or are they still making that dumb cop show?”

“Probably? Honestly, I have no idea,” Wukong answered, picking out a light blue. “I don’t bother keeping up with what the mortals do with my name, anymore.” He held out the paint for Macaque to look at. “Does this look like the right color blue?”

Macaque tilted his head at the color. “Uh… yeah, that looks pretty close to your bandana.” He turned back to his own painting, seemingly oblivious to Wukong’s blank stare. “You said the body is mostly circles, but this arm is not making shapes the way I want it to.”

“What-” Wukong quickly shook his head, ignoring that the first thing Macaque had thought of when he saw the color blue was his bandana from a thousand years ago, and not the skirt he’d seen Wukong wearing for the last few hundred years. Although, he supposed he had been wearing it on their journey to the get the rings, and maybe that was why it was the first thing Macaque thought of. “Wait, the body is circles and rectangles.” He leaned over to inspect Macaque’s painting. “Oh, you-” His voice caught in his throat as he desperately tried to bite back a laugh. “Alright, well, that’s… not how that works.”

“Something funny?” Macaque asked.

“Dude, why are your arms ovals?” Wukong’s question betrayed him, a giggle slipping through his wavering voice. “They’re, like, football-shaped, how did you do that?”

Looking affronted and a little confused, Macaque looked between Wukong’s painting and his. “You said the body is circles and rectangles! That’s, like, an oval. Right? A circle and a rectangle.”

This time, Wukong couldn’t help the laugh that exploded out of him. “You know, maybe I do want you to make a videogame,” he managed through his giggles. “I’d love to see a playthrough of nothing but this.”

Macaque shoved Wukong out of his space. “Shut up,” he said, but there was a playful lilt that made Wukong think he wasn’t actually as irritated as he made himself out to be. “You’re saying it to make fun of me, but I will make this game just to spite you.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Wukong managed to compose himself, turning back to his own painting. “Except you better get some art lessons or something first, because, man-”

“Alright!” Macaque interrupted. “I dragged you up here to get you out of your own, stupid head, not for you to criticize my art skills.”

Wukong paused at the admission, that Macaque had stuck around this long to… help. Of course, he'd mentioned something like that earlier, too, that he’d come back to the mountain to check on Wukong. And, really, Wukong hadn’t forgotten it, he just wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Far easier to pretend that there was no motive to keeping each other company other than banter and borderline arguments.

Most simply, neither one of them wanted to be alone. And if they couldn’t have the company civilly, then they’d have it violently, or reluctantly, or in the dying rays of sunlight pretending they didn’t miss each other just as much as they hated each other.

Only, Wukong wasn’t sure if they could call this hatred anymore. He wasn’t sure he wanted to and, when he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he ever did.

“So, what are we doing about… us? This?” Wukong pointedly kept his eyes on his own painting, but he could still feel Macaque stiffen beside him. “You know, because this whole situation we have going on isn’t- I don’t think it’s working out.”

Macaque took the bowl of water and idly swirled his brush around the sides. “Wanna be more specific?”

“You’re not going to attack the kid anymore,” Wukong stated matter of factly, because he knew Macaque wouldn’t. “And… I mean, it’d be really cool if you stopped attacking me, but, you know.” Macaque set the bowl down and flicked his brush in Wukong’s direction. “Hey!”

“Look, can we not have this conversation right now?” Macaque picked out a deep red and golden yellow from the box. “I’m too tired to deal with… us.” He gestured around them vaguely. “This.”

Wukong frowned. “Why not?” he asked, picking out a brown for his animal pelt skirt. It was strange painting his old clothes again, pulling the past from his memories and sealing them onto the stone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even seen his clothes from before the Journey, much less drawn them. “You’re here trying to get me out of my own stupid head, so why can’t we just talk-”

“You know why not,” Macaque said sharply. “I don’t want to fight, Wukong. Don’t make me regret doing this.”

And his exhaustion be damned, Wukong almost bit out something mean. Wukong turned to Macaque, ready to ask about all the other things he should regret doing.

But then his gaze caught Macaque’s picture. It wasn’t bad, considering Macaque’s painting experience was limited to set pieces. Wukong could see where Macaque had painted his black and yellow sleeves, though the style didn’t look quite like what the warrior had on, and the crudely shaped smear of red around the neck looked distinctly more like a bandana than a scarf.

“Can we at least agree to be civil?” Wukong tried. “I mean, for MK’s sake, you know? I think he wants to- I don’t know, befriend you?” He chuckled awkwardly. “I can’t imagine why, but-”

“You can’t?” Macaque asked, taking them both by surprise. Really, Macaque wasn’t even sure why he’d said anything at all, but he chose to blame his lack of filter on the post-battle exhaustion.

Maybe it was the way Wukong was so willing to forget what Macaque couldn’t help but remember. A closeness that Macaque couldn’t imagine having with anyone else, and Wukong couldn’t imagine Macaque having with anyone at all.

Though, he supposed he couldn’t blame Wukong, either, even if it hurt to admit. Why would anyone bother befriending the shifty Six-Eared Macaque? It wasn’t like he made it easy.

Macaque shook his head. “You know what? Never mind.” He went back to his picture, determined to finish it before he inevitably got pushed to a breaking point with Wukong. “Yeah, we can be civil for the kid.”

“Macaque-”

“Wukong,” he interjected. “We can be civil for the kid, and that is all you’re getting out of me right now.” For a moment, Wukong was blessedly silent, leaving Macaque to detail the armor in his painting in peace. There was a tension in the air that felt borderline electric, and he wasn’t sure if breaking that tension would be good for either of their healths. It certainly wouldn’t be good for Macaque’s, in any case.

But Wukong had never been very good at long silences, and only graced Macaque with a few moments of quiet before speaking up again. “That’s all I’m getting out of you… right now,” Wukong repeated slowly. “Does that mean we can talk more- uh, later? We could- I mean, if you want to.” Wukong cleared his throat. “Because I don’t, you know- I don’t really care-”

“No, of course, you don’t,” Macaque said bitterly. “The kid’s managed a damn miracle, getting you to care about anything.” And he knew that wasn’t fair, because there were certainly plenty of things the great and powerful Monkey King cared about, like his kingdom and his subjects and the precious few friends he managed to make over the years.

The Great Sage cared, of course, he did. He just didn’t care for Macaque.

Wukong’s expression flickered for a moment, and since Macaque refused to look directly at him, it was hard to tell what was going through his mind. “Fine, Macaque,” he said finally. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Macaque swallowed back his anger. If he got angry now, he’d be forced to retreat from the mountain. More than that, he’d have to go back to his empty dojo, and convince himself that the never-ending sounds of the city made him feel less alone.

“Can I-” Wukong started, and Macaque made a vague warning sound. “Come on, dude, I just wanted to ask you something. You don’t even have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Macaque considered him for a moment, letting his gaze drift to Wukong’s painting. It looked infinitely better than his own, a perfect replica of Wukong before the journey. Before the Brotherhood, even, and Macaque… he missed the days when he and Wukong could promise each other a forever. Back when living in eternal peace on Flower Fruit Mountain didn’t seem like some hopeless pipe dream, back when the promise was more than just an excuse for Wukong to seek out sources of power.

He took a slow breath, bracing himself for whatever idiotic question Wukong might have prepared. “Sure,” he relented. “Ask.”

Wukong hesitated for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if Macaque was setting a trap for him. And, given Macaque’s track record, he supposed that wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. “You knew the Lady Bone Demon was coming,” he said. Not a question, Macaque noticed. “You tried to warn MK that something was coming–that she was coming. And you were… I don’t know, you were trying to teach MK, I think? About his powers, and listening to his friends.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was, uh- also, trying to do that.”

“You don’t use a weapon,” Macaque quoted himself, “you are a weapon.”

“He doesn’t need his staff to use his powers, right,” Wukong agreed. “Although, I gotta say, I did not approve of your methods on that one.”

Macaque shrugged. “Eh, to be honest? Kinda did it to annoy you more than I did to teach him.” He picked up the bowl to rinse his brush again, noting how murky the water was getting. “I know better than anyone that there’s no way to actually kill you, it wouldn’t have mattered how much energy I stole from MK.”

“And,” Wukong added, “you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” He snickered, “I mean, you really punched the side of a mountain trying to hit MK with your giant shadow demon thing. Like, I still blocked it, but you seriously weren’t even close-”

“Trust me, if I wanted to hit MK, I would have. Could’ve done it literally anytime I wanted,” Macaque pointed out. “Like I said, I was mostly just trying to annoy you. And maybe prove a point.” He spun the brush in his hand for a moment, contemplating on what to paint next. “I was taking that other lesson a little more seriously, though. You know, about not ignoring his friends? Listening in general, actually, doesn’t seem like his strong suit.”

“Yeah, I sent him a magic blindfold trying to teach him some listening skills,” Wukong mused. “I don’t think it worked out too well, considering the whole gambling fiasco that happened in the desert.” He chuckled. “You know, maybe we’re both just really bad at teaching. I’m too lazy and you’re too mean.”

“Probably.” Macaque agreed. “I thought you were going to ask me a question. If you wanted to compare lesson plans, you could’ve just-”

“Why-” Macaque heard Wukong’s breath catch for a moment. “If you knew she was coming,” he said slowly, “and… you knew how absolutely screwed you were,” he glanced at Macaque, “I mean, I know we’re not on great terms, or- like, barely tolerable terms. But if she was really- I mean, if you were… you know.”

Brow furrowing in confusion, Macaque tilted his head at Wukong. “If I was… what?” He allowed himself a small smile. “You’re pretty bad at asking questions, you know that? You haven’t even-”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Macaque’s smile fell faster than a rock through water. “What?”

“Er- you could’ve run away? Or something. I just-” Wukong shifted uneasily. “Look, I may not want you back in the cave, but that doesn’t mean I want you back in the ground.” Macaque blinked at Wukong, struggling to attach a meaning to the words he was hearing. “You should’ve told-”

“Who?” Macaque asked in disbelief, finally realizing what Wukong was asking of him. “You? And why the hell would I tell you anything?”

Wukong shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know! You could’ve told the kid, or-”

“No, because MK would’ve told you,” Macaque interrupted, “and you would’ve done something stupid about it, and made my whole situation worse. Not that it was great to begin with.” The paintbrush in hand felt close to snapping, and Macaque forced his claws to loosen their hold on the slim, wooden handle. “Last thing I need is you getting involved in my business.”

“Oh, right,” Wukong said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “because what you did was so much smarter than anything I would’ve done. Going along with her plans and hunting down the kid, that was all real smart.”

Macaque felt a smile tug at his lips, too sharp around the edges to be friendly. “Yeah, actually, I think I handled the situation a lot better than you would’ve,” he bit out, “considering I made it out alive.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he could feel the regret coiling around his stomach. Wukong looked ready to say something, but Macaque wasn’t ready to hear it. “I’m-” he snatched the bowl of murky paint water and stood, “cleaning this. You’re done painting, right?”

“Macaque, put the bowl down,” Wukong protested. “I’m not gonna-”

But Macaque didn’t want to hear what Wukong wasn’t going to do, hauling himself to his feet and ready to abandon the situation altogether. His left leg creaked in protest, buckling under the strain of his sudden movement. Pressing his free hand against the top of the painted rock, Macaque steadied himself, though the bowl still jostled, water cresting the rim and dripping down the side in two small rivulets.

“Hey!” Wukong shot to his feet frustratingly fast, a hand hovering awkwardly between them. “I thought you said your leg was fine.”

“It is fine,” Macaque hissed. “I’m fine, would you just-” He didn’t like that Wukong was standing steadier than him. They weren’t fighting–not yet, at least–but Wukong having any advantage over him made an uneasy static burrow into his skin. Wukong hadn’t attacked yet, but what would Macaque do if the sage decided he was no longer interested in playing nice?

He refused to show weakness in Wukong’s presence again. Almost entirely forgetting about the bowl in his hand, Macaque shoved himself away from the rock and out of Wukong’s reach, trying to prove to himself as much as the sage that he was fine. Despite his determination, another bolt of pain tore through his leg at the motion. His tail whipped back and forth in a futile attempt at regaining his balance, but his leg refused to cooperate with him, determined to send him careening into the ground.

“Macaque!” Wukong took a step towards him, a strong hand grasping Macaque’s upper arm to keep him steady. “Alright there, bud, now I know you’re lying about your leg.”

It almost didn’t register at first, the warm hand encircling his arm, because the only thing Macaque could feel was the pressure. And it didn’t matter that the pressure was keeping him upright, it still felt far too much like chains. “Stop-” he barely choked out, then angrier, “Stop it!” He tore himself out of Wukong’s hold, hands raised before he could think about it, “Get off me!”

Wukong reeled back, his expression something between confused and hurt. “Macaque-” Whatever he might have said was lost as the bowl clattered to the ground. Macaque stumbled back from Wukong, his leg stooping dangerously before righting itself, and took a few steadying breaths once he’d regained his balance. Wukong’s hand still hung limply between them, the sound of the bowl spinning around until it settled the only thing breaking the silence.

Macaque took a stuttering breath. “I’m-” Empty hands closing into fists, Macaque slowly dragged his gaze away from Wukong to stare at the bowl of water he’d dropped. “Wukong-”

The bowl was the absolute least of Wukong’s concerns. The water that had spilled out of it, on the other hand, was an entirely different story, because it was grayish brown with used paint and currently splashed across the rock that Wukong and Macaque had just been painting on. And he wasn’t even angry that his picture had been ruined, he was just upset. The pictures had barely been given time to dry, there was no way either one of them would remain fully intact and, his rocky past with Macaque be damned, Wukong had wanted those pictures to stay right where they were.

“I didn’t-” Wukong’s gaze snapped back to Macaque, who flinched a little under his stare. “Um… I wasn’t trying to do that. That wasn’t-” His expression crumbled for a moment, in a vulnerable way that Wukong hadn’t seen it do for at least a thousand years, “I didn’t mean to,” he finished lamely.

A very awful, bitter part of Wukong wanted to blame Macaque, anyway. It was a small part, though, a part of him that never really left the Five Elements Mountain, and he smothered it with a strained smile. “It’s all good.” Macaque hesitated, then started forward, hand already outstretched to grab the fallen bowl. “I got it,” Wukong said quickly, not wanting to risk Macaque falling again, and swooped down to grab the bowl. “I’ll, uh… I’ll just go put this away.”

If Macaque had a reply, Wukong didn’t stick around to hear it. He quickly brushed past Macaque and into the house, trying to ignore the lump of emotions that had started crawling up his throat. He wasn’t even sure why he was so upset. It was a painting. He’d made MK destroy a thousand year old mural, and he was upset over some painted rock.

A rock he’d painted with Macaque.

Wukong walked to the sink and turned on the hot water, letting it reach temperatures that anyone without stone skin wouldn’t have been able to touch. Under normal circumstances, Wukong probably would have made a clone take care of the bowl, but he needed a distraction, so he took his time rinsing out the residual paint and letting the scalding water slip through his fingers.

He wished Macaque were a little more open to talking about… them, whatever it was they had going on. They certainly weren’t friends, but Wukong couldn’t imagine them being enemies again after this. Not only because it’d be a really stupid decision on Macaque’s part, but also because it didn’t seem like either of them wanted to.

But Macaque didn’t want to fight, and their past looked a bit too much like a battlefield to start charging into things blindly, so Wukong settled for the strange no man’s land they’d created.

Turning off the water and tossing aside the bowl, Wukong quickly looked around for something to dry his hands on before giving up and shaking the water from his fur. With the bowl clean and nothing else to stall him, Wukong put on the best smile he could manage, and mentally prepared himself to deal with the situation he’d left outside.

“Hey, Macaque,” he called, making his way back to the door he’d left standing open. “You see our paintbrushes out there? I was gonna-” He halted at the sight of Macaque crouched in front of the rock, the end of his scarf clutched tightly in his hand and pressed against the face of Wukong’s painting.

Wukong almost called to him again, demanding to know what he was doing. Hadn’t the painting been ruined enough without Macaque wiping it off?

Then Macaque pulled back, shifting a bit and pressing the scarf into a painted, light blue bandana. His brow furrowed in concentration as he continued to meticulously dry off the rock’s surface without disturbing the artwork. There were some spots that rubbed off more than others, and the gray paint water clouded the pictures a little, but they were still intact.

“Hey,” Wukong said quietly, trying not to startle Macaque. “You’re gonna ruin your scarf.”

Macaque’s ear flicked at the sound of Wukong’s voice. “Eh,” he shrugged, “it’s been through worse.” He pressed the red fabric to his own picture. “I’m… I didn’t mean to-”

“I know,” Wukong interjected, “I know.” Macaque gave a minute nod and then returned to his task. “Kinda my fault, anyway, for startling you.”

“You didn’t startle me,” Macaque said defensively.

Wukong chuckled, “Uh-huh, sure.” He waved for Macaque to move over. “C’mon, scooch. Lemme see.” Macaque moved from his crouching position, falling more than he did sit, and Wukong heard him wince. “You good?”

Macaque hummed as Wukong settled beside him. “Fine.” Then he scowled at the painting. “Ah, man. Smudged it a little.”

“Well,” Wukong said reluctantly, biting back his own wince at the face of Macaque’s picture, “I mean, that eye was giving you a hard time, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Macaque let his scarf fall, leaning back to see their partially ruined handiwork. “You know, maybe it’s just because I haven’t seen your art in a while, but I think this is probably one of my favorites.” Something in Macaque’s expression softened a bit, the lines around his smile easing. “I’m kinda glad you dragged me out here.”

Wukong spluttered for a moment. “What- you dragged me out here!”

“Doesn’t really sound like something I’d do,” Macaque replied. “I think your memory is starting to fail you, old man.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Wukong said, though a smile still tugged at his lips. “Fine, I dragged you out here, whatever.” He jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “Do I have to drag you inside, too? Or are you going to try portaling home with no sleep?”

There was a moment where Macaque didn’t say anything, and Wukong was sure he’d messed something up, somehow. Maybe after their near-argument from earlier, Macaque wasn’t interested in staying longer than he had to. Maybe Wukong was embarrassing them both by crossing a line that they weren’t nearly ready enough to approach.

Then, slowly, Macaque nodded. “I could probably use the rest,” he admitted. “At least a few hours, you know, so I don’t portal myself into a wall trying to get home.” He fidgeted with the hem of his scarf. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gone before you even wake up in the morning.”

At that, Wukong could feel his smile fade, though he tried his best to keep it in place. “Oh! Well, I mean- do you have to be?”

Macaque’s gaze stayed trained on their painting. “Yeah,” came the quiet response, his voice hoarse with an emotion Wukong couldn’t pin down, “I think I do.”

And there wasn’t much that Wukong could do to argue with that, so he didn’t. He and Macaque slipped into an easy silence that Wukong would have given anything to never break. If it meant that Wukong never woke up to find Macaque gone, he’d have gladly stayed awake in the lantern light until the moon laid itself to rest again.

That wouldn’t be very fair to either of them, though, not with how tired they both were. So, Wukong only allowed himself a few minutes of selfish peace before clearing his throat. “Alright, then.” He pushed himself up, offering a hand to Macaque. “I think I’m gonna pass out right here if I don’t lay down somewhere. You good taking the couch?”

“Are you kidding?” Macaque grunted, gently knocking aside Wukong’s offered hand–not harshly, Wukong noticed, just a polite denial of assistance, “I could fall asleep on a bed of nails right now. A couch sounds like actual heaven.”

Wukong gestured to the door. “After you, sleepy-head.” Macaque snorted, but took the invitation. “There should be a blanket somewhere, I’m gonna throw a hammock up or something.”

“I will never understand your love of sleeping in the air,” Macaque all but collapsed onto the couch. “Seriously. Tree branches, hammocks, not to mention all the times I caught you sleeping on a cloud-”

“You do realize that we’re monkeys, right?” Wukong plucked a hair from his hand and blew on it gently, summoning a hammock that swayed gently from the rafters. “It’s weirder that you want to sleep so close to the ground.”

“Not all monkeys sleep in trees, dude,” Macaque pointed out, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch. “Gorillas make nests almost exclusively on the ground.”

Clambering into his hammock, Wukong said, “Yeah, okay.” Settling into the cloth and tucking his arms behind his head, he continued, “Hey, I got a question for you, Macaque: Are you a gorilla?” He had just enough time to register a shuffling coming from the couch before he was hit with something soft. “Hey!” Snatching the pillow off his face and shoving it under his head, Wukong gave an annoyed huff. “Rude.”

“You’re welcome,” Macaque replied, settling deeper into the couch and pulling the blanket around him. “Now shut up and go to sleep before I teleport you to the North Pole.”

“Alright, alright,” Wukong closed his eyes and sighed contently. “G’night, Macaque.” Macaque gave a noncommittal hum in lieu of response, but Wukong wasn’t bothered. He turned onto his side and tucked an arm under the pillow Macaque had thrown at him, practically wrapping himself around it and nuzzling into the fabric as the last bit of tension left his body.

In his last lingering moments of consciousness, Wukong could hear Macaque’s breathing slowly even out. Macaque was always so slow to fall asleep when they were younger, his sensitive ears doing him no favors in finding peace, and his vigilance refusing to let him relax. The recent battle must have been just as exhausting for Macaque as it had been for Wukong if he was able to sleep within moments of laying his head down.

Still, Wukong knew Macaque would be gone when he woke the next day. Regardless of how tired Macaque was, sunlight never failed to wake him, and there was still a gaping hole in Wukong’s wall. Macaque would rise with the sun, hours before Wukong even stirred, and then he’d leave.

They would never speak of this night again, of course, and they probably wouldn’t even see each other for weeks or months or however long it took for the world to be in danger again, but Wukong couldn’t find it in himself to mind. He didn’t care that it almost took the world being unraveled for them to talk civilly, Wukong and Macaque were not hopeless, and there was proof painted on the stone outside.

If anyone had told Wukong, however many months ago it was that Macaque had reappeared, that they’d be sleeping under the same roof again, he’d have laughed. Surely, neither one of them would dare to be so vulnerable around the other without fear of being at each other’s throats. But now, finally losing his fight with exhaustion to the sound of crickets and Macaque’s quiet, rattling breaths, Wukong couldn’t imagine a better way to fall asleep.

#mylo's lmk stories #cross posted on ao3 #lego monkie kid #lmk #lmk macaque #lmk sun wukong #lego monkie kid sun wukong #lego monkie kid macaque #shadowpeach #lmk fanfiction

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bluvlet · 2 months ago

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hi ted!!

can you please talk about your opinion/thoughts on the relationship between robbie and drew bc you've mentioned it a few times in your posts and I'd like to know more about it 💕

Hi!! Thank you for the ask!! I’m afraid I can't offer a very well thought out analysis for you. But I’m happy to just ramble for a few paragraphs about some of my most steadfast thoughts about Drew and Robbie!

I really like the dynamic between Drew and Robbie; I think its significance can easily go overlooked compared to the other relationships in the episode. I suppose that my thesis statement is that it’s a parallel to Blake and Ellie’s relationship. Of course you have the general narrative parallels between Ellie and Robbie: the faceless children. And the parallels between Blake and Drew as fathers, which all work to naturally create a peculiar sort of four way mirror of reflection - where everybody's relationships are comparative. In that sense, Drew and Robbie mirror Blake and Ellie by virtue of what the narrative puts them through.

But I also understand this to be how Drew himself views his relationship with Robbie. I’ve talked about this a few times before - I think Drew purposefully recreates the circumstances surrounding Ellie’s death with what he does to Robbie. ‘I want you to know what it’s like to be me.’ he tells Blake, rather solemnly. If we take Drew as telling the truth (which I do here) then he’s admitting what he’s doing is supposed to represent Ellie’s death. I don’t mean this in a literal sense (that whatever Drew imagines happened between Blake and Ellie he recreates with Robbie) but more as a lens through which Drew constructs and executes his plan.

To Drew, Robbie is Ellie. Robbie represents this precious thing that Drew has lost, his daughter he is prepared to die for to avenge. He wants Blake to know what it's like, so he will try his best to replicate the circumstances he lost Ellie in with Blake’s son. But for Blake to know how it feels to be Drew, Drew has to assume Blake’s role. Drew has to be Robbie’s abuser in order for his plan to work. As a consequence, Robbie takes on two juxtaposing identities to Drew - something precious Blake should sacrifice everything to keep safe, and a pawn Drew can bury in a box underground to punish Blake.

There’s a sequence in the first half of the episode, before Drew drops his act, where I think these two roles merge into one in Drew’s mind. I’ve said all this before. Drew knows what he’s done to Robbie is killing him. I interpret Drew’s ‘I think I might’ve killed somebody’ and the outburst that follows as a genuine slip of his composure. I’m struggling to find the right way to word this but I think that in that moment Drew views (if not entirely then at least partially) what he’s done to Robbie as how he views Ellie’s death. He recognises that he’s buried Blake’s son alive, outside of the game he’s playing. That despairing recognition turns into anger, and he snaps at Blake. He then composes himself in the bathroom, and channels that rage back into acting on his plan. It’s hard to say how guilty Drew feels over what he does to Robbie. As a father who has lost his child he knows the pain he’s inflicting on Blake, and is willing to put him through that regardless. But he also formulates his plan so that if Robbie dies he dies, meaning he would not have to live with the guilt.

We never find out how Drew got Robbie into that box underground. In the same way we never know exactly what Blake was doing at the hotel room. The only thing we know for certain is that Drew spoke to Robbie at some point. During his phone call to Blake, Robbie tells him: ‘He said you’d come get me. He said everything would be fine. He said you’d do the right thing.’ I’m sort of obsessed with this. I just think it’s such a choice, that this is the only thing we find out about what Drew did to Robbie. I fluctuate between interpretations of this but in general I think Drew is comforting Robbie - whether insincerely or genuinely is debatable. You could interpret this as Drew imitating Blake. Again I struggle to articulate this; that reassurance that everything will be fine whilst you’re twisting the knife - it’s twin with Blake and Ellie. If that’s the case then it feels almost spiteful, that Drew knows Blake isn’t coming. He’s almost indulging in replicating Blake’s cruelty. Or, you could understand Drew as genuinely comforting Robbie that his dad will save him - perhaps instead indulging in that precious aspect of Robbie I mentioned earlier. It all depends on how much faith you think Drew has in Blake to ‘do the right thing.’

Robbie’s phone call itself acts as a sort of imitation of Ellie’s audio recordings. Drew had to listen to Blake prey on his daughter, knowing she was already dead and he could do nothing about it. Now Blake has to listen to his son cry and suffocate, knowing he doesn’t know where he is to save him.

Drew also acts as a surrogate for Robbie. How Drew is treated by Blake directly influences Robbie’s fate. Drew dies, Robbie dies. Drew’s identity in the episode is one of my favourite things to rack my brain about. He is Robbie and Ellie.

I hope these were the kind of thoughts you were looking for! I have a few more thoughts about Drew and Robbie but they’re more like little fragments than real points. I'm always concerned that what I’m thinking doesn’t translate well to written words when it comes to this episode. Do let me know what you think!

#the trolley problem #i rotate these characters around my mind constantly #genuinely sickening #ask

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ask-the-royal-absol · 1 year ago

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(@ask-gizmo-and-vigil) Gizmo: So, Hope. How strong exactly is your Blaze Kick? I assume you know that move, so you could essentially melt those steel bars and kick some ass for us!

*Hope sighed. This idiot didn’t even know what EVs were. Clearly this pokémon has had no training or they’d know about them.*

Hope: Effort Values, or EVs for short, are the values gained when Pokémon engage in combat. They increase your attacks and defences and can be key to obtaining victory. And judging by your stats…

*Hope eyes, at the mention of this, changed from their usual blue to an orangey-brown colour, carefully studying Destino. They soon fade when she finished what she was doing.*

Hope: You’ve definitely been slacking on your training. Sure, you have some attack EVs. But you haven’t truly maximised them. And nothing in speed too? You really need to step up. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to be easily knocked out by a simple attack. You look frail enough as is. I doubt you’d even be able to land a scratch on me.

*How dare this Pokémon make a criticism like that?! Destino was incredibly strong. They knew it. No Pokémon in the Underdark could best them. Except their parents. And the Bisharps. But that was it. The rare candies they were given raised them up to a solid level 30. Destino had to get to her in some other way.*

Destino: Hope Hope Hope. I see what’s happening here. You can’t fool me. You’re purposefully avoiding my claim that you can’t break the bars by going into this nonsense about “EVs”. I get it. You’re too weak. I understand. Not everyone can be as strong as me.

Hope: You mentioned your lack of knowledge on EVs and so I had to tell you what they were. What do you mean avoiding your claim?

Destino: I mean, it’s clear you’re too weak to break out. You would have done so already if you could.

Felix: Hey Des, maybe don’t taunt the Pokémon who almost kicked your ass? She’s told me she’s had a lot of training.

Destino: Really? Too bad that training clearly hasn’t made her strong or anything. No wonder she was so easy to capture.

*This Absol was frustrating. Hope could feel herself getting angry.*

Hope: You seriously think I couldn’t break through?

Destino: Huh. You know I always thought those were a lot stronger than that. Guess we’ll need to get new ones. Good going. You do realise those take time to make? Wow Hope. Destroying property that doesn’t even belong to you. What kind of a princess does that? Clearly one that hasn’t been trained in royal etiquette. I expected better from you.

*The audible, frustrated growl that came from Hope brought a smug smile to Destino’s face. Felix floated forward. He didn’t want Destino to get their ass handed to them yet again.*

Felix: Alright. Destino pal, I get ya havin’ fun with this but ya do need ta stop. I’m finding it entertaining but there’s only so far ya can go before it gets violent.

Destino: But I was only just getting started! I was gonna throw a few more verbal insults here and there. See how far I could push her.

Hope: Would you like me to come out there and kick your ass?! I am super effective against you!

Destino: And I’m Destino, how’s it going? I could easy beat you when it comes to combat.

*Their smug grin broadened as Hope got more riled up. Felix, seeing this happen, floated in between the two of them, holding his hands out to stop them from doing anything further.*

Felix: Alright! Destino, stop now. Ya gone too far. Ya gotta work with this Pokémon on the surface. What’s the use in taunting her when she’s gonna be the only one helpin’ ya up there?

*Destino gave a nonchalant shrug.*

Destino: Pure entertainment really. It’s just so much fun to see her squirm.

Felix: No more, or I’ll have ta possess ya ass until ya behave. I spoke to ya about shit talkin’ tough opponents earlier. That applies here. She’s here to bring ya up there safely so ya can do what ya need ta do. This insultin’ is gonna do more harm than good.

*Felix didn’t do it much, but when he did possess Destino, they hated it so much. They hated that loss of control they had as they were powerless to overcome it. Sighing, the smug grin faded from their face.*

Destino: Urgh, fine. I’m only doing this because you asked, Felix. The next opportunity I get, however, I’m going straight for the personal insults.

*When Felix got between the both of them, Hope felt a little calmer. Someone dealing with this annoyance. She looked intriguingly at the pair as they spoke. Looks like Felix had some weapon that he could use against the Absol. And threatening its use seemingly worked. Hope had heard stories of ghost types possessing Pokémon and using their bodies for their own sick, twisted desires from stories that had been passed around. Looks like this was one of the things that were partially true. She wondered how much control the Gengar had over someone’s body when he possessed them and for how long.

So many questions she wanted to ask. It seemed Felix was going to be more reasonable to speak with. He definitely had a strong sense loyalty when it came to the Absol. However, if she could get him also on her side, she may be able to use that to get the Absol to do whatever she wanted.*

#pokemon ask blog #pokemon #pokemon askblog #pokemon oc #ask blog #ask the royal absol #destino the absol #pokeask #ask #chapter 3 #hope is stronk #ass Destino hours #oh yeah these two are gonna get along just swell #story tag

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duckiemimi · 1 year ago

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Will you talk more about virgin Satoru? I feel like this concept is becoming quite popular among the fandom and i think it makes sense. will you share more?

also did Sukuna in latest chapter imply something or just that he couldn't connect with anyone? it's kind of similar with Satoru except he connected with Suguru but they never slept together smh

really?? this is surprising to me considering we’ve gone years with ppl characterizing him as a womanizer! baby steps!

realistically speaking (well, as realistically as it gets considering any opinion about characters’ sexual lives in jjk is mostly headcanon territory), there’s a big chance that he is a virgin. but there’s a big chance he isn’t either.

all we really know in canon is that he eats sweets to stimulate his brain, and that’s really the only cemented and stated fact we know about him with any proximity to sex (yk, bc “stimulation”). we also know he loves a good fight and can tend to almost lose sight of the point of the battle because of it. he’s also a non-drinker. i assume it’s because alcohol more so serves as a depressant than a stimulant (perhaps that wouldn’t bode well with the cycling of reverse cursed energy in his brain).

so far, we can infer that gojo likes certain stimulations. taking these things into consideration, we can either further infer that a.) he only looks for stimulation from sweets and battle-adrenaline, or b.) he looks for stimulation everywhere, he wants to feel. the first inference would imply that yes, he could be a virgin. the second: no, he is not. gege has also mentioned that whenever he wears his sunglasses out, he could be meeting girls. (edit: this was a mistranslation; this is what gege meant.) whether or not that leads to sex, we’d never know…

he could either have a typical guy-in-his-late-20s-who-has-no-time-for-himself sex life (which isn’t a big roster to boast about, not that gojo would really care about boasting purposefully), or he could actually be a virgin (implying, none of his dates ever went that well). i don’t think he has any particular interest in other (living) people, at least romantically or sexually. like you said, the only person he’s ever really connected with is geto. (have they slept together? i don’t know, maybe. those are some long 10 years, but again, there are no cemented or stated facts. in my opinion? they have mindblowing sad sex every now and then and it leaves gojo hollow. hehe.)

but then again, would gojo need connection to have sex? or would he be fine with a simple hook up/one night stand? after all, it is just stimulation—unless he puts meaning to it. and while i do talk about his metaphorical infinity a lot and how he unknowingly pushes people away because of it, is sex off-limits because of it? or is that metaphorical infinity just an internal shield for his feelings only? for the unaddressed emotions he’s locked in a box in the back of his brain?

in my opinion? he could definitely be a virgin! if he does see meaning in sex, then the only person he would’ve done it with is geto, but alas, they’ve either never had sex before or we don’t have any on-screen proof (yet…hehe). i’m leaning more towards gojo having the very, very rare night with a stranger. he brushes it off his shoulder the next morning and goes back to work.

as for sukuna??? i honestly think he grew up an unwanted child until someone showed him care and love, then they betrayed him and he became cold all over. (sound familiar? well, except the gojo clan wanted and expected gojo, and gojo became warmer because of geto.) i think sukuna got his hopes up and opened his heart up to someone who tore it into pieces and as a result, he’s spent hundreds of years working to prove that he was never that weak and vulnerable and that love is a fantasy concept. the typical thing you see with some men in real life. what’s new?

#jjk #gojo #gojo satoru #sukuna #jujutsu kaisen #jjk 238 #jjk leaks #jjk spoilers #asks

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snakeautistic · 11 months ago

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Thinking about how when horrible acts are committed often our immediate response is to deny the humanity of their perpetrators. How often do you hear that someone who has done something so terrible, so vile that you could never imagine doing it yourself must be less than human?

It’s meant as a source of comfort in some ways, I think. It serves to distance yourself from even the potential to do harm. Surely, only someone who is irreconcilably different from you could do that. Surely they must have been born evil. But, as we in a way mythologize these people, we obscure a fundamental point.

All of us are capable of the worst aspects of humanity. Does that mean we would ever, in our circumstances, our lives, reasonably seek to do them? That we would even humor the idea? No. But that is not an inherent difference in you- that is a difference in context- in circumstances, in choices. I think that’s why we become fixated on the idea of labeling people around us who have done terrible things to us as irreparably broken- that to hurt is their nature as a living thing. But that’s not true. No one is inherently bad.

And that doesn’t at all take away the weight of someone’s actions. In fact, in some ways it places more burden on them. If you argue that a person is born to inflict pain, that they have no other potential- can you reasonably blame them for doing that? You can’t- it wouldn’t be their choice, they would lack any agency over their own actions. (Of course, not all harm is inflicted purposefully and maliciously- but for the sake of keeping our scope a little narrower, as broad as it already is, we are focusing on malicious harm.)

I think recognizing this humanity, even within the worst of people is incredibly important. When we demonize people, they become more representative of abstract concepts than real people. Actions are no longer seen with nuance or intent behind them- they are assumed to be the manifestation of some greater dark force- one with a satisfaction for evil. (To be super clear here- this nuance does not lessen the responsibility of whoever caused harm or its impact- it simply gives us a fuller reason of why something was enacted.)

And then we fail to see how the people around us we don’t immediately recognize as ‘monsters’ (including ourselves) can inflict harm. We say- “I know that guy, he was always nice to me, there’s no way!” We say- “those were just a few bad apples- the system itself is fine.” We say- “bad people will find ways to get their hands on weapons. It doesn’t matter what we do to regulate them- the shooters will always exist”.

#more philosophical than I usually get on here #also not really autism related but #existentialism #human nature #autistic rant #autistic rambling #thoughts #free will #this is by no means a watertight argument #I’ve already spotted potential counters for it

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alovelyfox · 6 months ago

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Chapter 7: Caught

The next couple seconds seem to stretch on for multiple lifetimes. Y/N remains looking shell shocked at Kyle while he tries to remain as nonchalant as possible, ignoring the blaring alarms going off in his head. Her eyes survey his body, taking in his distorted face and bloody appearance.

“Oh my god, Kyle.”

She then rushes out of his office, and Kyle runs after her into the kitchen, thinking of every possible way to justify how he looks.

“Y/N, wait. I can explain everything. Just let me-”

She puts a finger to his lips and he stops talking, his brain turning blank at the sudden contact

“No, let me,” she says, pointing towards her desk. “Go sit down.”

He hesitates, and she looks at him with pleading eyes.

“Please Kyle.”

He nods and takes a seat on her chair, while she assembles something he can’t see. She comes back a moment later with an hastily mustered ice pack, which she dumps into his open hands and then walks back to his office. Returning with a clean white shirt, she takes the ice away and looks him up and down.

“Take your shirt off.”

Her sudden bluntness stuns Kyle, and she turns away upon realizing.

“Sorry, I meant take your shirt off so I can assess the damage,” she elaborates, her voice suddenly quite shy. Once he confirms it’s off, she turns back around and inspects his body. He watches her intently while she does, but her face only exhibits concentration. She sighs once she’s done, and tells him to put the new shirt on.

“Looks like they didn’t do much to your body. The main issue is your face, but we can get that patched up in no time,” she says, handing him the ice pack to put over his black eye before walking back to the kitchen. She comes back with some gauze and a cold, damp cloth, which she lightly presses on the area around Kyle’s lip. She’s way too close to his face for his liking, so to avoid eye contact he glances at the clock, which reads 10:15 pm.

“Wait, why are you here in the first place? It’s quarter past 10, everyone else would’ve left hours ago.”

“Oh yeah. Well, it’s kinda embarrassing, but I thought you might not have left yet, and I wanted to see you. Good thing too, otherwise no one would have been here to help you after getting mugged.”

Wait, mugged? Kyle thinks, then he smiles as he realizes why she must assume that.

“How do you know the blood on me is mine?” He asks with a playful tone, and she smirks.

“I don’t think I could imagine you purposefully hurting anyone, ever,” she replies, and his heart skips a beat.

I was standing in front of her covered in blood, yet she still refused to believe that it was my fault. Imagine what she’d say if she knew the truth. He shook that thought out of his mind.

“Why do you think that?” He questions, and she shrugs.

“You’re normally so calm, and you always keep your emotions in check, unlike me.”

She turns somber, probably remembering how she cried on his shoulder that evening after the trial.

“Hey, don’t worry about the case. You’re gonna make a great lawyer. I mean, you care so much about everyone around you, and always see the best in people no matter what they do.”

Embarrassed, she shyly tries to turn away but he stands and tilts her chin back up so she’s forced to look at him.

“You’re lovable, and charming without even trying. And you’re so beautiful…”

His voice trails off after the last word, and her breath hitches as they look into each other’s eyes. She again tries to avert her gaze down to the floor but he snakes a hand to the back of her neck, and leans in so close he can feel the warmth emanating from the inside of her mouth through her slightly parted lips. His own are tingling with anticipation and they’re about to make contact with hers when the door bangs open, startling Kyle so much he jumps 10 feet away from her.

“Y/N? And Kyle? What are you two doing here?” Sam’s voice penetrates through the empty room, instantly killing whatever mood was just in the air. Kyle turns away to hide his blush while Y/N answers him.

“Oh Sam, it’s just you. Kyle got mugged, so I’m patching him back up.”

“Kyle got mugged? Is he alright?” Sam asks as he hurries over and starts examining Kyle’s bruised eye.

“I’m fine,” he says, pushing Sam’s intruding hands away from his face. “What are you doing here?”

Sam looks around sheepishly before replying.

“I quit.”

“What?” Y/N asks bewildered, while Kyle tilts his head in confusion.

“Yeah, all the management changes going on also means budget cuts, so I got told that I can keep my job, but at a lower salary. And I don’t know, I joined this firm years ago because I needed work straight out of college, and I think if I don’t get out now I’ll be stuck here for the rest of my life. So I quit, and it feels so liberating knowing that I have so much ahead of me, and that I’m free to follow my dreams.”

Y/N moves to hug him, while Kyle awkwardly pats him on the back. He had known Sam for a while now, but had kept him at arm’s length like he did everyone else. Everyone until Y/N entered his life.

“Anyways,” Sam continues after she lets him go. “They called me an hour ago and apparently already found a replacement, some guy called Leopold. He’s starting in a couple days, so they want me to take all my personal belongings out of my desk, which is what I came here to do.”

“Oh, well I’m pretty much done with Kyle over here, so we can help! Right Kyle?”

He nods, and they head over to the receptionist desk. They pack all Sam’s things away into cardboard storage boxes, and he complains at how fast the company replaced him, while Y/N reassures him that it’s a sign that he did the right thing by quitting. The name of his replacement sounds familiar to Kyle, but his brain is still buzzing from the almost-kiss and he can’t concentrate on where he knows it from. In fact, he can’t concentrate on anything other than Y/N, and keeps stealing glances at her while they load the stuff into Sam’s car. She however, is firmly avoiding eye contact, and when Sam offers to drop her home she jumps at the chance.

She gives Kyle a tight smile before telling him to go home and heal up, then practically sprints into the passenger's seat of Sam’s car. He drives them off, leaving Kyle standing all alone, wondering what he did to make her go from nearly kissing him to not even wishing him goodnight.

…

The bruise on Kyle’s face along with his split lip healed nicely overnight, but every time Y/N averts her eyes from his the next day at work, he swears the pain comes back. She’s carefully seated at her desk the entire day, not looking up from her paperwork at all. Not when Kyle walks over to wish her good morning, or when he asks her whether she got home safely last night, or when he offers to bring her some coffee. It’s like he’s ceased to exist in her eyes. After many failed attempts to get her attention, he solemnly walks back to his office, working there quietly until 6 pm, when Sam pops his head in.

“Hey Kyle, since it’s pretty much my last day, a couple of us were gonna go down to the bar and grab some drinks. You wanna come?”

Normally Kyle would refuse an invitation to hang outside of work like this, but he figures this would be the perfect time to confront Y/N about what was wrong, so he grabs his coat and walks out with Sam. Y/N is still working peacefully at her desk, and upon seeing Sam she gets up, but a glimpse of Kyle behind his shoulder gives her pause. Sam walks into the elevator and she rushes to follow him in, but Kyle grabs ahold of her wrist to pull her back.

“Hey Sam, you go into this one. We’ll come in the next.” Sam looks slightly confused, but shrugs and closes the doors, leaving the two of them alone.

Kyle loosens his grip and Y/N slides her wrist out of his hand, then waits patiently for the elevator to come back up again, refusing to look at him.

“Y/N, please,” he pleads, but when the doors open she steps in and presses the ground floor without so much as a glance at him. He gets in beside her and the doors shut behind him. His eyes unconsciously look over at her but she suddenly finds much interest in the elevator buttons, which is where she keeps her gaze set.

Fine, if that’s how she wants to play this.

Kyle presses the emergency stop button and moves to face her, closing the gap between them and pressing her back to the elevator wall.

“Look, I know you’re probably mad at me for what happened yesterday, but what we’re not gonna do is playing this fucking silent treatment game. If you have a problem, you tell me right now, and I’m not letting you out of here until you do.”

Her body shifts uncomfortably from being in such close proximity to his, but she keeps her eyes firmly on him as she replies.

“I’m not mad. But to be honest, what you’re doing right now is giving me a reason to be.”

Kyle steps back from her and she returns to where she was standing, letting out a heavy sigh. She presses the emergency button again and the elevator starts moving again. She glances at him, and he’s about to utter an apology for his abrasive behavior when she cuts him off.

“If you want to know why I’m acting weird, at least get a couple drinks in me first,” she says grinning, and Kyle smirks. The doors open and she steps out into what he’s sure is gonna be an interesting night.

…

Sam and the others cleared out a couple hours ago, so when the clock strikes 11 pm, only Kyle and Y/N are left sitting at the bar. Empty shot glasses with dribbles of various alcohol lay in front of them, and Y/N’s sipping a craft beer while Kyle rests his head on the bartop. His mind is hazy and his thoughts unclear, as opposed to how they were when he entered.

His sole purpose was to have one drink with Y/N and get her to spill her guts, but her natural charm made him forget what he came to do. Their conversation topics ranged from how nice it’s been to have the sun out recently to whether or not Kanye would actually make a good president, and all the while the liquor kept flowing. Kyle was never a big drinker, so after a couple shots he practically collapsed on the bar, as Y/N just laughed. He now turns his head to look at her, watching as she sets her beer down and faces him.

“What’s wrong Y/N? You can tell me anything, you know?” he says, slightly slurring his words. She looks him up and down before taking a swig of her drink and sighing.

“I think losing the case yesterday has made me depressed,” she replies. “I mean, I did everything right, yet it still wasn’t enough. That’s why I didn’t want to see you today. I thought you’d be… disappointed.”

Kyle can’t imagine a world where Y/N could ever disappoint him. He found it stupid of her to think that, even for a second.

“It’s also why I haven’t texted Gemma back,” she continues. “I can’t face her knowing that she has to go back to working under that horrible man because of my failure.”

“Oh, she’s not going back to work for him. I took care of that. I took care of him.”

Y/N gives him a confused look, but his tipsy state won’t let him stop talking.

“I didn’t want that guy to be here, so I made sure you never had to see him again. I killed him”

“What, like physically?” She asks, perplexed.

“Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. You name it, and he’s dead. Chopped him up into some pieces and tossed him into the underworld,” he says, and she chuckles in response, so he elaborates.

“I’m kind of like the modern day Hades, you know?”

“Oh really, how so?” She teases, and he spends the next couple minutes talking about all the similarities the Greek king of the underworld and him share. She listens along with a smile, but when she gets a text from her phone it quickly disappears. Even in his drunken state he figures something must be up, so he asks her what’s wrong.

“Oh, it’s just Stan,” she says apathetically, texting him back before setting her phone face down on the table. “I helped him get a job recently so he wants to meet again to see me.”

“What, like on a date?” Kyle questions, suddenly sitting upright.

“No silly, I already told you we’re not dating.”

“Okay. Good. I don’t like the thought of you two… dating.”

“Oh yeah?” she asks playfully. “Why not, you feeling jealous?”

“Yeah. The only one you should be dating is me,” he says, and Y/N tries to laugh it off, but he stares straight at her and she stops. She’s looking at him with those damn teasing eyes of hers, and his heartbeat skips just like it did at the office yesterday. He feels like he can’t breathe, and he needs her mouth to provide him with the oxygen he so desperately craves. Leaning forward, he prepares to join their lips together and finish what he couldn’t last night, but his intoxicated brain’s misjudges where her face would be, missing her mouth completely and causing him to fall off his chair, kissing the floor instead of her.

Y/N immediately rushes to help him, but upon realizing that he’s alright, she can’t help but giggle at what just happened. She slings his arm around her shoulder so that she can walk them out of the bar, and the refreshing summer’s night air slaps Kyle across the face. It feels good, but unfortunately doesn’t help his wasted mind, so all he can do is garble an incoherent sentence when she gets him into his car and asks for the address. She sighs, and her getting into the driver's seat is the last thing he can remember until he awakes to the sound of her yelling.

…

His arm is still slung over her shoulder, and when his eyes open he immediately recognizes that they’re at her apartment. What he doesn’t immediately recognize are the people inside, and it takes him a couple moments of rapid blinking and squinting to perceive the scene in front of him. Stan is naked on the couch, and who looks like a more naked version of Wendy Testaberger from his hometown of South Park is under him. They’re both covered in sweat, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they were/are in the process of doing. And that’s when Y/N’s yelling starts to make sense.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?”

#south park #southparkfic #south park fanfiction #south park x reader #kyle broflovski #kylebroflovskific #kyle broflovski x reader #stan marsh #wendy testaburger #stendy #fanfic #fanfiction

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matt-murdick · 2 years ago

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Others have explained their reasoning before, but I'm wondering, why do you think each original sibling never undaggered Finn? With the obv exception of Freya. But would she have undaggered him immediately? 🤔

Great question, thank you for asking. This is just my opinion so if anyone has other ideas feel free to add to this and make it a discussion. (I do not proof read, I can only hope this is legible)

The reasons offered by canon definately contribute to Finn’s siblings keeping him daggered. The two main ones to me (from canon) are that Finn’s morality made him a difficult person to be around and that he hated being a vampire, they were worried about him.

I mean, Klaus was willing to let Elijah believe that he had tossed all his siblings into the ocean where they could never be reached, just because he found Elijah’s moral crusade annoying. Finn hated everything about vampirism and he let them know. He complained about their bloodlust, how easily they gave into their bloodlust, how unnatural they species was — if you were already struggling with what you’d become and you were trying to make the most out of it, this shit is the last thing you need to hear. I always assume this stifling morality of his is what they’re talking about when they call him dull.

Elijah brings up the concern that Finn would be a danger to himself. Honestly, if they were running from Mikael and his siblings could see him consider just giving in and dying every time, that’s scary. And I know what people say, “he had Sage, he was the happiest he had ever been.” Sure. But you can’t expect a depressed person to stop being depressed just because they’re in love, so why would they think that loving Sage would make Finn content being a vampire. (H/C Finn was depressed as a human, vampirism amplified that, being a vampire added to it. Finn struggled to connect to his siblings after Freya. They had probably never seen him struggling like that until they were forced together with volatile emotions. It’s hard to watch people you care about, who you’d always seen as strong, break down).

Once Finn has been daggered for a while, it’s easy to leave him that way. He was hard to be around. I don’t think they ever actually forgot him or that they were purposefully abandoning him, like Finn thought, but I do think he slipped their mind. It was easier without him, they had their own issues to worry about, and vampires don’t feel the passage of time. Also, they didn’t know it was hurting him. This is a big thing to remember. As far as the rest of the Mikaelsons are concerned, a dagger to the heart is a magic pause button. It’s annoying but it was never meant to hurt Finn. Would they still have done it if they knew? That’s a different question that I won’t go into, but it’s worth a thought. These reasons apply to all his siblings, I’ll try not to repeat them.

First thing I consider is that Klaus had just killed the Brotherhood of Five before undaggering his siblings, and so is suffering from the Hunter’s Curse for the first 53 years of Finn being daggered. (I like to think it kicking in is one of the reasons he didn’t undagger Finn)

Klaus is literally obsessed with his family, he probably didn’t like that Finn was off with Sage all the time. Remember this guy kills all his siblings’ lovers, and maybe he hasn’t started that yet or Sage is the exception bc she came before that urge or he can recognise that these two are actually devoted to each other unlike the other lovers he’s killed. I mean, even 900 years later Klaus still hadn’t killed her. I’m sure she’s a survivor (and don’t get me started on the possible relationship dynamics between Sage and the rest of the Mikaelsons), but if Klaus wanted her dead then she probably would be. He’s an original. They’re only beatable in the shows bc you can’t overpower regularly appearing characters or there would be no conflict.

So initially, I think Klaus’ reason is his paranoia and fear of his siblings leaving him, enhanced by the Hunters Curse. I actually like to think that by having one of his siblings daggered and therefore unable to harm or leave him, was probably a great comfort for him during this time. Although that would have lessened when the curse ends, the sentiment continues. Klaus needs to know where his family are, and he needs to keep them safe from Mikael. He’s a little control freak and this is a great way for him to exercise that and keep his wandering brother close by.

My understanding of Elijah is that he takes responsibility for pretty much everything that happens in his family and whilst he may have preferred to undagger Finn, he always prioritises Klaus over the rest of his family (from the guilt over Mikael and Aurora, until the anger at Klaus effectively killing their family for good outweighs that, then it comes back). If Elijah considered daggered!Finn to be a benefit to Klaus whilst under the Hunter’s Curse, he’s absolutely gonna allow it. It’s benefitting Klaus, and it’s ‘not hurting’ Finn. So why wouldn’t he? He’s probably defending the idea, and laying it out as though it’s the most reasonable option.

I think Rebekah was definitely pro-undaggering Finn. But I think she’d find Elijah’s justifications convincing. She’d probably feel the most guilty about it, so she’d try not to think about it. Still, she’s much closer to Klaus and Elijah than her other brothers.

I don’t think Kol minded much. Finn was a good ten years older than him and if they were ever close it would probably be more parental than fraternal, to cope with Mikael and Esther’s poor parenting and the trauma of Finn losing Freya and then struggling to connect to his siblings. They seem to have had a somewhat hostile relationship from at least the Martell period (pretty typical of siblings ngl) but Kol seemed most antagonised by Finn’s betrayal in TVD (indicative of a closer relationship than with Esther). I personally think his loss of magic and lack of control over his thirst probably made him the most affected by Finn’s anti-vampire campaign. Kol seems to like trying to ignore the pain a situation causes him by drowning it out (loss of magic leads to extra bloodlust). I think he was glad not to have to deal with it and if he ever felt bad? Well, it was Klaus that kept him in the box. Not Kol.

I think the important thing to consider with Freya is that she’s just as desperate for her family as Klaus is. If she got to them earlier then she would absolutely undagger Finn. He’s her baby brother, he’s the only one who would be able to remember her, and there is no way she’ll be able to convince The Original Vampires that she is their witch-sister-who-‘died’-and-even-if-she-hadn’t-she-would-defo-be-dead-over-one-hundred-years-later without Finn or Esther (or even the threat of Dahlia) there to back up her claims. Freya would undagger him immediately out of both sentiment and practicality. The only reason she wouldn’t undagger him is if she was convinced it would harm him, and his “suicidal tendencies” would not cut it for her. Tbh I think Freya would think that it’s an exaggeration and that she could help fix it. So yeah, if Freya is out then so is Finn.

(A Doylist answer would be that he was invented right before his first appearance and they kept him daggered so he would be pissed at them and put his Cain instincts into play. Also laziness. But that’s boring so Watsonian answers only.)

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teamfortresstwo · 8 months ago

Note

There’s not a specific name for what ares and Hannah experience because it’s dependent on their skills, but I’ve always considered it a branch of schizophrenia, because it certainly draws ideas from real and existing ideas. The main difference between the 2 ideas is how it’s caused/the initial onset, but most symptoms ares experiences are near identical to schizophrenia and any medication that would work for it would still work. <- sort of a disclaimer almost? I always feel a need to clarify.

Hannah’s hallucinations are mentioned to have occurred while she was with aion, but got severely worse after aion disappeared. This is because the symptoms don’t start during periods of high stress or even just in normal daily life at normal. Hannah’s symptoms started at possibly 22, while for ares it started at about 30, which is also nothing to do with how it develops. With how this specific disorder works, it exclusively starts when someone experiences times of extended lack of stress or an odd calmness. Hannah’s emotional stability balanced out when she started working with aion, because the lack of nervous or daily stimuli caused her skill to create new patterns of thought to make up for this. It’s almost like how allergies occur, the immune system believes something normal to be dangerous and tries to attack it, but the mind has a confused response to heighten relaxation. This fortunately means it only shows up when someone would likely have comfortable time and support systems to deal with it; Hannah coped well enough to keep working perfectly fine with aion until aion disappeared. The signs remain stably “uncomfortable to live with but certainly liveable” until someone falls back into stress without support, when it gets MUCH worse; causes Hannah to lose most ability to live independently. It’s much harder to recover from this point onwards.

With ares, he was never really even fully calm after he met dolos because the knowledge that people were looking for him and that they could technically bring oulixes back was always there. He was happy and capable of having a really nice life, but didn’t reach a baseline of actually fully calm enough for signs to start. After he drowns oulixes though, he feels genuinely as if no one could hurt him for the first time in his life. Without context it’d be easy to assume it’s having seen Oulixes’ corpse speaking or threatening him that did it, but it’s not. It’s how safe he felt after that was done. Now, logically, ares has support systems. He has dolos and Lilith and friends who care about him and people he can go to. It should not have hit him as hard as it did. But unfortunately, 2 key things stopped him. 1. ‘Oulixes’ convinced her that the people she cared about had limited patience; she should be better now and she’s not and soon they’re going to get fed up and stop caring. He also created a fear of appearing like Oulixes should she panic and lash out. Wrath was originally much crueler, per se, than ares, and oulixes used him as a “This is how everyone sees you. They all think you’re just like me”. 2. Ares remembers how Hannah was manipulated by oulixes because she suffered from the same thing. He only ever saw her like that. He has a very instinctive fear of telling people he suffers from the same thing because he could be manipulated, he could lose any control he has, anyone could trick him, maybe he just can’t trust anyone, even if they care they could probably do it by mistake- the fear is mainly nonsensical but with how he saw Hannah his entire life, it’s completely understandable.

yeah . 👍

Wait so: Does stress make the symptoms worse or was Hannah purposefully deprived of stimuli ?

OHHHHH . Okay yeah that’s . Really fucked up man . God that’s - yeah . Fuck .

My guys literally cannot catch a break . What if schizophrenia worked like an appendix that actively hated you .

Shit…. At least he has Zephyrus ? I appreciate that Ares goes to him because he doesn’t care about what he thinks so he’s allowed to be annoying and run his patience thin . I hope eventually he realizes Dolos and Lilith will support him anyways, especially since Zephyrus eventually runs away to America with Lucifer, hypothetically .

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lya-dustin · 11 months ago

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Shock and Delight

Chapter 10

Cw: mentions of violence, attempted assault, westeros' famed misogyny and double standards

After everything she’s done to avoid being painted as a whore, she’s ruined anyways.

Ruined and married off to Lyonel, because he undoubtedly planned this with the help of the Queen.

Lyonel had tried to use force with her, only he didn’t expect Aemma to react as anyone would and punched him hard enough to break his nose… and knee him in his groin as father and Harwin once taught her.

The only problem was someone had seen it and no doubt believed what Lyonel said.

Aemma hadn’t seen who it was, only heard the footfalls of a man running towards them and when he came to the scene, she’d fled the other way to where she remembered was an old fountain hidden away in the corner.

Unfortunately, someone was coming this way.

The princess stopped her pacing, dried her tears as best as she could with her sleeve and braced herself for the worst. She could lie and say she was not there with Lyonel, but who is to say they’d believe her.

Mother is only one person, and the court is ruled by her enemies either way, Aemma would be Lyonel’s wife because the queen demanded it and that was the end of it.

“What are you doing here?” the princess asked at the all too familiar man coming from the main garden.

“Laenor must be proud you remembered your lessons, niece.” Aemond speaks quietly and walks purposefully towards her. Goes as far as showing his hands are empty in an attempt to put her at ease. “Don’t worry, I gave him a good beating to hide any evidence that his attacker was a lady.”

Aemma is more confused than relieved to know it is him.

“You still haven’t answered my question.” Aemma scratched her arm in discomfort or the effect of running past a hedge to get here. Could be both, perhaps her ill luck will result in an unseemly rash.

“Avoiding mothers and their daughters, the Morning issued a challenge, and they have all accepted.” He answered her question as if they’d merely chanced upon each other on a walk, not that he helped cover up something that will result in her reputation being ruined irreparably. “A good thing too, I had intended to do the right thing and save you, but I am relieved to know you can hold your own.

I dislike you least of all of your family, you know.”

“I suppose I should thank you; a beating was the least you could do. At least he will be indisposed for a long enough time to prevent a hasty marriage.” Aemma reluctantly thanked him, although if word came out that she was alone here with him and he’d beaten up Lyonel for her, they’ll assume that she too lost her maiden head to her uncle just as they believe her mother did.

Gods, and she thought not having suitors was bad.

“You can’t possibly think about marrying him, he should be punished for putting his grubby paws on you.” Aemond scoffed as if she had a choice.

“He and his father petitioned my mother for my hand, they agreed to stand down should your grandfather call for support in placing your brother on the throne. He told me that himself.” He also claimed to have the queen’s permission to ensure such a match happened and whatever Queen Alicent says goes these days. “And if anyone were to discover what happened they will say I am not a maiden and that will be enough to force me into marriage to him because no one else will want me.

I am ruined anyways, Aemond.”

The pale haired prince acts as if she’s just being pessimistic and in his pity he takes her by the shoulders and treats her with a gentility she wasn’t really sure he possessed.

“I may have a better solution, dear Aemee. One that makes it impossible for Lyonel to even think he has any right over you.” His eye shines from whatever this solution is and while Aemond has not done anything recently to say he means her ill, Aemma is apprehensive about agreeing to anything he says.

“You can’t kill him.” The princess shoots down the offer before he can speak it and he gives a small chuckle as he tilts her chin up. She feels like blushing, why was he being this nice to her?

“Oh no, not that. Although I am surprised, I didn’t think of that first.” The prince says as if his idea was as good as killing the bastard.

What could be better than that?

“Then what is your great idea, dear uncle?” Aemma asks turning away pretending her stomach didn’t flutter from that their proximity and his cool hands on her.

She will say no, because its likely awful.

“That we make the Morning’s speculation appear to be true.” He smiled like the cat that ate the canary, a smile he used to sport when he was up to some mischief when they were children.

“You’re mad.” The princess gasped in response to his suggestion, as if the idea would never work ---and yet she stood there with him instead of leaving.

“Not mad, merely brilliant.” Aemond corrected and offered her a handkerchief made by Helaena for his use. She had cried by the looks of it, the kohl running down her cheeks said it all. “If you let me explain my scheme, I am sure you’ll see every reason why you should agree to it.”

“You may speak.” The princess cautiously accepted the handkerchief with a tone one might use on speaking to a merchant peddling their wares.

“If we were to form an attachment you would instantly become the most desirable woman here because my mother and grandfather cannot afford for Vhagar to join Rhaenyra’s army of dragons. All the young men would be falling at your feet on their father’s orders and Lyonel will never bother you again.” That was his best argument, having Lyonel be overwhelmed by the sheer number of men vying for her attention.

“That seems oddly generous from you, but what do you get from it?” Aemma proceeds warily and he wonders when he has ever given her cause to doubt him.

Luke had just taken his fucking eye and in that moment Aemond was too in pain and drugged by the poppy milk to understand it had truly been an accident.

In fact, he had little recollection of the event save for the pain, the blood, Luke holding the bloody knife as the Kingsguard stormed in and Aemma crying as he held her hand,

He shouldn’t even be helping her, her mama tried to have him tortured for calling Luke a bastard and his father didn’t even make Luke apologize for the accident. His poor mother had felt desperate enough to try and take the brat’s eye herself when no one would give him justice!

But he is, because he doesn’t have any negative memories of the silvery haired girl trying not to cry and one of the oaths of knighthood is defending women and Aemma despite being Rhaenyra’s heir and their enemy is a woman and Aemond earned his spurs on his nine and tenth nameday.

“If ladies see I am unavailable they will cease to bother me. There are only a few ways to reject them after the Morning displayed me like a trophy to be won.” He admits knowing Aemma wouldn’t judge him for that.

The purple eyed girl studies him like Helaena studied bugs in the garden and then tentatively accepts his offer. “How are we to make this mummery look real? You said it yourself, you dislike me, Aemond.”

“For tonight all we have to do is return to the manse together, we will go over specifics in the morning when the Godswood is empty.” The prince answered feeling free of the burden of being the most eligible man in King’s Landing. “Besides, I was being sincere when said I disliked you least of all. You never joined Aegon’s bullying when we were children.”

Alicent has yet to recover from seeing her father act so strangely with her cousin when she sees two pale-haired figures come from the gardens looking like something out of a song.

Lyonel is nowhere to be seen.

“What do you know, the Morning was right.” Samantha murmured to Bethany who cannot help but turn to where the prince and princess approach Rhaenyra.

The queen studies them, she has always enjoyed watching people around her, but ever since her father made her queen, she’s had to weaponize it.

She had never expected to have to do that to her own children, especially her Aemond.

He may grow up tall and handsome and deadly, but he will always be the little boy covered in blood and dirt sitting there as the maester sewed his little eye shut forever. And now he flies too close to the sun.

Aemond smiles as he speaks and she laughs quietly as Jacaerys narrows his eyes as any good brother would. Not out of jealousy, just knowing his sister is as susceptible to a man’s charms as any girl here is.

But it is unfounded, Aemond wouldn’t hurt her, he was better than that. Better than his father who admitted to always desiring her since she grew into womanhood alongside his own child. Better than her father who sold her in his endless pursuit of power.

Her sons would be better than them or they wouldn’t be her sons.

Aemond led her to the floor, his hands reluctant to leave her, both gazing into each other’s eyes as young love begins to bloom and before they even begin dancing, the ballroom is abuzz with it.

Some claiming they knew it was bound to happen, others taking back their words and even worse, Daeron asking Rhaena to dance because he lost a bet about them.

“They are Targaryens, blood calls to blood.” Daemon says as he looks smug about it all, as if he’d planned it. “We cannot help it anymore than you can’t help obeying your father, your grace.”

“What do you want, your highness?” she asks feeling a spike of fear. Did he know how deep their schemes ran?

Was he here to tell her she was as much as a snake as the man who sired her?

“Men and supplies. If there is already a war to be fought, there won’t be eager soldiers ready to tear apart Westeros because a woman wears the crown of the Conciliator.” He answered, bluntly.

Daemon had always been one to speak the truth. He had never felt the need to hide his nature unlike many of those around them, even his own brother.

A small virtue standing there like a pinprick of light in a sea of pitch darkness.

“I will see what I can do.” Alicent grows confident enough to put a condition of her own. “I may be able to get everything you need and more if you aid me in separating them before its too late.”

He should know who she means by them, Rhaena was more Laena’s daughter than his and a match between Daeron and her would not cause issue for her cause as would a match between Aemma and Aemond.

Besides, Daeron was at an age where he would get a long engagement since he has just turned five and ten unlike Daemon’s daughters who will be six and ten in the coming weeks.

The Rogue Prince seems to be in agreement. “Prince Qoren has sent words about joining my campaign and his son, Qyle, will be leading their men. Once things are secured enough to come for a spell, an introduction can be made between them. They will take to each other and Dorne will be brought into the fold with Aemma’s hand.”

He seems so sure of it, but he knew the girl better than she did and Dorne would not think twice about seeking her hand in marriage.

Rhaenyra comes to join them none the wiser, “I apologize for any words he may have said, your grace.”

“Oh, he was only asking about the king’s health. We both agree the Maester should taper the amount of milk of the poppy they administer.” The queen lies and hates herself when she sees Rhaenyra’s eyes brighten at the good news.

It is all for the best.

#aemma velaryon #aemond targaryen x velaryon!oc #ocappreciationtag #aemond targaryen #ewan mitchell #shock and delight fic #bridgerton!au #aemond targaryen x ofc #aemond targaryen x oc

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